Damned to Eternity: The story of the man who they said caused the flood

by Adam Pitluk

James Scott was twenty-four years old when he was first convicted in 1994-and then again in 1998-of intentionally causing a catastrophe. His alleged crime was causing a levee to break, which flooded over 14,000 acres of farmland during the Great Midwestern Floods of ’93. Though no one died, he was the first and only person in Missouri history convicted under this obscure 1979 law and is now serving a life sentence. He won’t be eligible for his first parole hearing until 2023, when he will be fifty-five years old. In Damned to Eternity, Adam Pitluk contends that James Scott was a victim of a federal agency, a town, and law enforcement hell-bent on blaming him for something he maintains he didn’t do.

328 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 2007

Reviews

[Annie]

James Scott was guilty of being an acoholic, of growing up in a poor, bluecollar working class home, and of making bad decisions, but should never have been sentenced to life over something that was clearly not his fault. This book also has a local connection since the jury was bussed from Sedalia, MO.

[Holly]

I got the from a local IL library after seeing Vice News' YouTube video about Jimmy Scott in late 2022. Aa the book mentioned,, the 2023 parole hearing is quickly approaching so I presume that is why Vice did a segment on it. The writing is okay. It would be cool if he does update it next year.

As a native Illinoisian (maybe that is a real word 🤔), this checks out. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that folks are judgemental, biased, and full of pent up grudges from the grade school days. That is the personality of ~75% of this state. Go look into the Starved Rock murders next -- HBO did a piece on it too. Actual murderer got to live out his days as a free man able to continue killing whoever he pleased for the rest of time while IL convicted someone they already didn't like. 21st century DNA evidence showed the truth but the offcial stance was lol whatever. Laws, man. So good.

[Adam Mann]

While I never felt like this book was going all that far out of its way to convince me of Jimmy's innocence, what I found consistently annoying was the quality of the writing.

Some events, such as Jimmy burning down a garage, are so embellished and hard to believe that it's difficult to buy Pitluk's portrayal of Jimmy in other places. How does the author know that Jimmy hums Sweet Baby James before he gets interviewed by the police regarding the flood? He doesn't--that's not the kind of thing a person would remember to tell someone writing a nonfiction book. The author makes these things up, just like Krakauer makes up similar small details in Into the Wild. The problem is that these details aren't very convincing in this book--they're details contrived by an outsider who wants us to think he really knows the inner workings of the plain, good ol' folk.

In an attempt, perhaps, to reflect the perspectives of the book's characters or to infuse the narrative with folksy language from the heartland, Pitluk often employs wrong-footed diction that has an inappropriate ring and sometimes slips into bathos. Take the following sentence, for example: "Jimmy stood there until the heat from the blaze and its accompanying smoke became the only breathable air in the joint." He happens to be standing in a garage in this scene, and the use of the word "joint" makes a tense moment seem like it's being filtered through the voice of a detective in a hardboiled novel. This book is full of instances where the language is distracting.

Too often the prose is exaggerated, to the point of being downright silly. Take the following sentence:

"He surveyed the scene with his limited vision and saw one farmer laying facedown on the ground, the rain assaulting his prone body with reckless abandon..."

The personification of rain, using the trite phrase "reckless abandon"...this reads like amateurish fiction. If you want a good exercise for your eye muscles, this book will have them rolling

[Gary]

The more I think about this book, the more I am reminder the poor and ignorant get the dirty end of the stick ... which applies whether guilty or not.

[Keyan Christian]

I was 8 years old during the Great Flood of 93. I was also from the area the book is written about and i remember very vividly a lot of the events around that time, but being so young I wasn't fully in tine with this story. I was aware of it but was too young to understand the details. Reading this book brought back a lot of memories of that time. That being said, I found some of the book was spot on, but then I found some of the book to be written like a fictional story. It was odd to me how it was written, but I still enjoyed the book because it reminded me of my childhood.

[Angie Taylor Spangler]

Being from Quincy, IL (where this book takes place) I was very excited to read about portions of our town’s history.
It was good. It could have been better.

[Gardavson]

Ok, so it was a bit slanted. Cleverly done in such a way that the reader may not realize they are being herded where the author wants you to go. In fiction, that is the mark of brilliance. In non-fiction, well, it just depends. Anyway.

So, James Scott. Did he do it. The author wants you to at least consider the possibility that he didn't. After all, you don't sell books telling people what they already know. Much of what is presented as evidence that James Scott may NOT have done it can be pretty easily explained away. Certainly he COULD have done it, after all, two independent juries found him guilty, despite one juror's naps.

Because a community refuses to forgive your past and ongoing sins and determines you guilty on site has no effect on your actual guilt. The author seems to contend that because the community seemed ready to hang him before his trial, he may not have done it.

I didn't grow up in Quincy, but I live here now. I was going to college between Culver in Missouri, and Blessing in Quincy at the time. I had no previous knowledge of the guy really was too involved with my studies to pay much attention to the times. It has been interesting to look back at it now though. I can say that most of the people here now know, for instance, that James Scott burned down Webster school, but few left have any particular attachment or sentiment about it.

Frankly, I think it sounds like James has found his niche in life. He seems to be most productive and given to more acceptable behavior when he's behind bars. Whether or not he committed the crime that got him there? Well, there's not much we can determine with 100% surety.

I know just a little about the other brother, Jeff. Now that is a story I'd like to hear. He seems to be doing well and I think his story would be interesting.

[Larry Wegman]

The story of the man who was convicted of causing (and almost certainly did so, despite the author's claims to the contrary) the flood of 1993 at W. Quincy, IL. Once again I'm reminded how low is the esteem in which I hold journalists. My youngest brother's father-in-law (with whom I'm acquainted) is one of two main characters in the first third of the book. While he is portrayed fairly, the book had plenty of other glaring problems, including stating what people were feeling and thinking without having interviewed them, and believing stories given without corroboration. Always take everything any journalist says with a large grain of salt.

[Alan]

Ok. It's an interesting story after having visited li'l ol' Quincy, Illinois during the flood last summer, but it's also unclearly sourced and pretty embellished. Not bad for a buck.

[J]

Read a review in Buffalo News. It sounds amazing--like a true Grisham novel!