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A Memoir of Murder in My Country
by Patricia Evangelista
A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy—told through harrowing stories of the Philippines' state-sanctioned killings of its citizens—from a journalist of international renown
"My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don't wait very long."
Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.
Some People Need Killing is Evangelista's meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines' drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte's war on drugs—a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.
The book takes its title from a vigilante whose words seemed to reflect the psychological accommodation that most of the country had made: "I'm really not a bad guy," he said. "I'm not all bad. Some people need killing."
A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is also a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an important investigation of the human impulses to dominate and resist.
"With rigorous reporting, Evangelista painstakingly lays out how Duterte gathered political power and convinced his constituents to support the slaughter...The result is an astonishing and frightening exposé that won't soon be forgotten." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A Filipino reporter's powerful chronicle of the brutal anti-drug crusade and violent toll of President Rodrigo Duterte...Heartbreaking personal stories underscore the consequences of a government-incited extrajudicial rampage." —Kirkus Reviews
"Tragic, elegant, vital ... Evangelista risked her life to tell this story." —Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated
"In this blindingly ambitious, unfathomably brave, fiercely reported book, Patricia Evangelista exposes the evil in her country with perfect clarity fueled by profound rage, her narrative voice at once utterly brutal and terrifyingly vulnerable...Few of history's grimmest chapters have had the fortune to be narrated by such a withering, ironic, witty, devastatingly brilliant observer." —Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of The Noonday Demon and Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World
"In this haunting work of memoir and reportage, Patricia Evangelista both describes the origins of autocratic rule in the Philippines, and explains its universal significance. The cynicism of voters, the opportunism of Filipino politicians, the appeal of brutality and violence to both groups—all of this will be familiar to readers, wherever they are from." —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
This information about Some People Need Killing was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Patricia Evangelista is a trauma journalist and former investigative reporter for the Philippine news company Rappler. Her reporting on armed conflict and disaster was awarded the Kate Webb Prize for exceptional journalism in dangerous conditions. She was a Headlands Artist in Residence, a New America ASU Future Security Fellow, and a fellow of the Logan Nonfiction Program, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Her work has earned local and international acclaim. She lives in Manila.
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