38. The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer

Category: 50 Books

38. The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer

This book is why I haven’t read anything (well, anything else) in two weeks. I finally finished it. I feel as though I’ve won a contest with myself; the damn thing was 1056 pages.

This book is in the same vein as Capote’s In Cold Blood (my favorite true crime book), but while Capote calls his a nonfiction novel Mailer calls his a true life novel. Seems like the same thing to me however, at my ‘brary In Cold Blood is in the nonfic section and The Executioner’s Song is in fiction so… there you go.

I thought The Executioner’s Song was very well-written, which is probably why I stuck with it. It’s the story of Gary Gilmore, the guy who had been in prison most of his life, got out for 8 months, murdered two young Mormon guys, and got the death penalty. I knew I would enjoy the first half of the book where it talks about Gary’s life,  but I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the second half of the book that deals mostly with the trial and the execution shenanigans.

I say shenanigans not about capital punishment, but about Gilmore’s situation. Basically, he was tried and convicted on Murder One charges and got the death penalty (which had not been done in ten years) and so Gilmore goes with it and requests it be done by firing squad. And he waived his right to appeal. So when Gilmore calls the State of Utah on it people freak out and try to appeal for him to slow down the execution. That’s what I mean by shenanigans.

Like I said, it’s well-written. All of the people in the book have their own personalities, and every paragraph that they “star” in has their personality in that paragraph. I know that’s the worst description of anything ever, but that’s the best way I can explain it. Uncle Vern, for example, is old and very hard-working. He’s honest. And every paragraph with him in it has his earnestness all over it. It was amazing because the paragraphs are choppy and skip around from person to person and you’d think that’d make for some difficult reading or at the very least be annoying as all get out, but it wasn’t.

I will warn you though, the book is depressing but not how you’d think. Of course the senseless murders are sad, but that’s not really the main focus of the book. It’s everyone’s lives. It’s as if the whole thing was hopeless since the beginning. Nicole’s situation is sad and on one hand I hate her; she sucks as a mom. But on the other hand she had a history of sexual abuse that no one took care of and is in fact, still just a kid herself (what, was she 19? 20?). And here comes Gilmore and attaches himself to her and there goes the rest of her life.

It seems like most of the people had this same duality. You’d hate them one minute and then feel pathos for them the next, even Gilmore. I never felt bad for him, I never thought it was unfair for him to die, but I did feel that he never had a chance for living a life outside of prison (having no impulse control will do that). Mailer, I think, tries to make him more human, to show the part of Gilmore that could love deeply, who was highly intelligent, who could write poetry and draw masterfully. But Mailer wasn’t so insulting as to pull the wool over our eyes, cos quick as he’d show the softer side of Gilmore something would invariably come up to show the complete bastard side of Gilmore.

Schiller comes off as a real slimeball for most of the book. But then towards the end when it’s obvious that Gilmore is (finally) going to be executed, you see Schiller start to fall apart and admit he doesn’t want Gary dead even though he’d make a hell of a lot more money with Gilmore dead than if the state somehow found a reason not to execute him. You see Schiller (and most of the others) getting physically ill the closer they get to Gilmore’s execution, and it bogs the reader down as well.

So, great writing, interesting yet terribly depressing story, and I gotta admit, I really want to know what happened to Nicole and her kids. I feel like a nosy grandma for wanting to know, but yeah, I want to know.

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