European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 11, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                3 a who weeps for the victim?7 electric chair at Florida prison facing witness room is Central element in prison life novel. By John Barbour associated press Cote on a the blood s  Page 10 the stars and stripes four Hundred Miles South of where Jim Mclendon stands on his Back porch in blowing Rock n.c., is the place he used to Call  other place is a grim Gray Complex Oblong High Concrete buildings a City with narrow barred windows a mile and a half wide enclosed by 30-foot fences topped by barbed and electrical wires guarded by tall Concrete  other place is called Raiford prison and out of it Mclendon has fashioned a Book rooted in his past but Al ready a thing with a life of its own manufacturing his  has grossed $1 million from two novels that emerge from prison life. The first death work is just being published. The second is not yet written. Death work is a compelling Story fiction drawing on fact based on a Day when Florida re institutes the death penalty and electrocuted four human beings a Day Possi Bly not far off. Jim Mclendon spent his first nine years within Rai Ford s Walls his father first a guard then a prison offi Cial. Before he was through adolescence he had see three electrocutions. He does not care to see another. Somehow the prison and his Early life in a poor sunday september 11,1977 Florida town haunt him even in blowing Rock look ing across the undulating valleys toward the High mountains of the Blue Ridge. These Grimmer images throng the pages of death work % the death chamber was in Complete darkness but the room was warm the heat had been on All week end. ."0 the electric chair was like no other chair Ever made. Everything about it exuded evil it was sterile and in flexible yet totally physical. All Wood. Solid Oak with a Grain that arced out in ribs that formed garble Zigzag patterns that made no sense. A chair with Only three legs giving the false impression that it was rearing Back like a bucking  convicts built the chair in the Spring of 1924, after the state legislature changed Florida s form of Legal death in 1923, from hanging at the county courthouses to electrocution at Raiford prison. They Cut Down a giant live Oak on the Banks of the new  words Are As Stark and Blunt As Jim Mclendon himself. At 35, he is a Stocky bearded Man who never finished College who by his own admission can t spell and who did t read a Book cover to cover until he was 22