Chicago, August 1999. A young man is shot twice and slashed repeatedly with a samurai sword, after which his female companion is choked, kicked and stabbed to death. A drugs dispute thus resolved, the two bodies are carefully dismembered (using the same samurai sword) and the pieces distributed across Chicago. What is the relevance of this? Well, the perpetrator of these charming acts is my new pen-pal.

I worry about myself. If I wanted a pen-pal, why not someone in a foreign country who is working hard to learn English? Or, if it must be an inmate, why not a prisoner of conscience held captive by a repressive regime? For reasons unknown I signed up with Lifelines, an organisation that describes it’s raison d’etre as: “supporting and befriending prisoners on Death Row in the United States through letter writing.” No doubt we’re all Guardian readers, self-consciously testing the extent of our professed liberalism.

As soon as I had been given the name of my new ‘friend’, I sought out details of his crime. This is precisely what one shouldn’t do, of course. Scanning the names of his Illinois Row-mates, I thanked God that I hadn’t got the one who abducted, raped and killed a 10-year-old girl, or the one who raped, killed and burned both a mother and her child. At least my guy wasn’t the worst of the lot. I discovered that a vindictive father had abused him and fed him drugs from the age of 4; that he was hospitalised aged 13 for the treatment of drug addiction and serious mental illness; that at his trial he was diagnosed as having ‘borderline personality disorder with paranoid schizoid features’. But, whatever mitigating factors exist, the fact remains that he has committed horrific brutal crimes, and here I am offering him friendship and providing him with my home address.

With the knowledge of his crimes at the forefront of my mind, I struggle to construct my first letter. I can’t help thinking, why on earth a samurai sword? In the circumstances, it feels absurd to be offering a polite introduction and asking formulaic getting-to-know-you questions. His reply arrives a month or so later. His letter is short and impeccably polite and he thanks me for showing an interest in him. He has enclosed a short story with the cautionary preface of “May your heart not crack after a reading”. I feel a sense of foreboding. It is the tale of a boy who finds a sword and is forced by this sword to commit evil acts. The boy must turn into a stork and fly to a volcano to destroy his weapon and free himself from its influence. The character’s name is an anagram of the author’s.

He writes in bold yet elegant capitals with calligraphic embellishments. He obviously fancies himself as a writer and his story is littered with descriptions that, though often ungainly, lodge in one’s memory. At some points, he is simply nonsensical. What should I make of this: “Shortly this note must cease, for a hydridized (sic) pterodactyl’s hooves are etching the laws for shadow hunting on the pillars of my inner sanctum”?

It’s difficult to craft responses to his letters. My clipped British sentences are no match for his soaring unbridled prose. He gives no details about life in prison, though he refers once to the guards’ “pseudosadistic disciplinary tactics”. It seems I must jettison all attempts at normal conversation and somehow respond in kind.

In his first short story, there were multiple references to various forms of martial arts and Eastern philosophy. I asked him to expand on his interest in both. In response to this, he simply rebukes me for using the categorisation ‘Eastern’. His full admonishment is as follows: “As far as Eastern philosophies, I consider myself a lover of wisdom and would be a fool to do anything except study what I can when I can from the Masters without concern of small titles whose sole purpose is to draw the uninformed into a labyrinth of pigeon-holed prejudices.” Bloody hell. The ignominy of being lectured by a convicted murderer! Besides, I don’t generally split the world into East and West, you self-righteous prat; I was merely trying to build a conversation.

There is no doubt as to his guilt, of course. He writes, chillingly: “I am capable of desire’n (sic) the total annihilation of immortals and mortals alike. Clearly the world has witnessed a few of my nefarious deeds.” Indeed. I feel a level of apprehension about what I might read in future communications. I’m not sure what my motivation is for initiating and sustaining this letter-based connection but I must admit to an increasing fascination with my new pen-pal. Perhaps it’s true, as Lifelines maintains, that friendship can be kindled in the most unlikely of places.