Book Synopsis

We are all more than the worst thing we've ever done

"Margulies tells the stories of people who have done monstrous things but are not monsters, are not forever defined by their worst acts. He writes beautifully of pain and loss, but also of redemption and transformation....A wonderfully hopeful book about what it means to be human."--Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

In Cast Out, civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies insists that those who commit even the most heinous crimes are one of us and should be judged in a spirit of forgiveness. He explains that American society is too often unforgiving, preferring to cast out those we consider irredeemable by fixating narrowly on the question, "What did they do?", and imagining that those who have done great wrongs have no past worth learning and no future worth preserving.

But judgment in a forgiving spirit demands that we ask, "What happened?" What brought a human being to this place. Through intimate interviews, his rich chapters bring to life six men and women, sharing their (sometimes brutal) crimes, the grim but all-too-human paths that led them there, and their evolution and insights.

Eye-opening and unflinching, Cast Out makes us truly see those society locks away--the so-called "worst of the worst". It challenges the reader to see us in them and them in us, and in that way, to recognize the humanity we all share.

Review Quotes

"This is the book I've been waiting for. Margulies tells the stories of people who have done monstrous things but are not monsters, are not forever defined by their worst acts. He writes beautifully of pain and loss but also of redemption and transformation. He crisply gives the reader the big facts we need but without abstractions or generalizations; instead, we are given unique stories that made me say, 'Ah yes, I know this soul.' This is a wonderfully hopeful book about what it means to be human, and I can't think of a more important lesson for our time."
--Sister Helen Prejean, best-selling author of Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate

"Joe Margulies's Cast Out is a small miracle of a book. In telling the heartrending stories of those cast out, Margulies gently prods us to find ourselves in them, to see the humanity in those we've written off. This book, filled with grace, is a cri de coeur, one so essential for this moment, a plea to become a more empathetic and forgiving society."
--Alex Kotlowitz, author of An American Summer

"Cast Out is a courageous and morally necessary book for this moment. We are living through a protracted war on the poor where, although we have the resources to end poverty, death by poverty, detainment without due process, and policy violence is the norm. In his latest book, Joe Margulies pushes readers to confront the human cost of these unforgiving and violent yet-to-be United States--one that too quickly casts people as irredeemable 'others' while letting powers and principalities do as they please. Through unflinching stories and honest questions, Margulies calls us to reckon with pain, power, accountability, and the sacred truth that no one is defined solely by the worst thing they have ever done. This book challenges us to imagine a society rooted not in vengeance and violence but in mercy, justice, and our shared humanity. As a liberationist pastor and theologian, I find this book rooted in the kind of forgiveness and repentance that the Bible teaches."
--The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-author of You Only Get What You're Organized to Take

About the Author

Joseph Margulies is a writer and litigator, and Professor of the Practice of Government at Cornell University. As a civil rights lawyer, he was Counsel of Record in Rasul v. Bush in 2004, which gave Guantánamo detainees the right to challenge their detention in federal court, and in Munaf v. Geren in 2008, which gave American citizens the right to challenge their detention by the U.S. government.