For the last seven years, journalist and critic Robert K. Elder has listened to the last words of people about to be executed. “Listened” means reading newspaper accounts, combing through prison archives, talking with counselors — and in 2010, Elder published many of these in the straightforwardly titled Last Words of the Executed, available from University of Chicago Press.

What’s most impressive about the book — besides an introduction from the late Studs Terkel and a blurb from Sister Helen Prejean — is its focus on people, not politics.

Last Words is an oral history, including everyone from William Robinson, a Quaker executed in 1659 for religious protests to Aileen Wuornos, put to death in 2002 for killing six men. And while of course anything with a barcode and a Library of Congress entry is somehow political, Last Words, organized by timeline and execution method, stands out for its clear, no bones presentation. Its storytelling. It’s like you were in the room, the square, on the front steps. Parts are funny and parts are sad and parts are nuts.

Tomorrow, Thursday June 10th at 7:00, just off the Damen Blue Line at the Stop Smiling Storefront (1371 N Milwaukee), you can hear Robert Elder fireside chatting about the book with Rick Kogan, newspaperman extraordinaire, for free. The event is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago and Stop Smiling. Full details (and sweet graphics) on the Stop Smiling website.