The Executioner's Song
by Norman Mailer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Norman MailerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-04-28
ISBN: 0375700811
Number of pages: 1072
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Executioner's Song
Book Review: Amazing Body of Work
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read this book when it first came out back in 1979 when I was 26 and I loved it then. Thirty years later I decide to "do it again" and I was not disappointed. The investment Mr. Mailer devoted to the project is staggering. This particular case entailed much controversy legally, historically, and Mr. Gilmore et al are thoroughly memorable personalities- I later checked him out vis a vis an A&E Biography on youtube.com. The entire situation was stunning as well as its developments. Norman Mailer is an undisputable genius. It all left me breathless.Don't be daunted by the length- it's well worth the time.
Summary of The Executioner's Song
Winner of the 1980 Pulitzer PrizeIn what is arguably his greatest book, America's most heroically ambitious writer follows
the short, blighted career of Gary Gilmore, an intractably violent product of America's
prisons who became notorious for two reasons: first, for robbing two men in 1976, then
killing them in cold blood; and, second, after being tried and convicted, for insisting on
dying for his crime. To do so, he had to fight a system that seemed paradoxically intent on
keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.
Norman Mailer tells Gilmore's story--and those of the men and women caught up in his
procession toward the firing squad--with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a
restraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmore's Utah. The
Executioner's Song is a trip down the wrong side of the tracks to the deepest sources of
American loneliness and violence. It is a towering achievement--impossible to put down, impossible to forget.
The Executioner's Song is a work of unprecedented force. It is the true story of Gary Gilmore, who in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States since the reinstitution of the death penalty. Gilmore, a violent yet articulate man who chose not to fight his death-penalty sentence, touched off a national debate about capital punishment. He allowed Norman Mailer and researcher Lawrence Schiller complete access to his story. Mailer took the material and produced an immense book with a dry, unwavering voice and meticulous attention to detail on Gilmore's life--particularly his relationship with Nicole Baker, whom Gilmore claims to have killed. What unfolds is a powerful drama, a distorted love affair, and a chilling look into the mind of a murderer in his countdown with a firing squad.
Mailer, Norman Books
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