Winner of the Pulitizer Prize, this book has been on my TBR pile for quite some time. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a couple other Norman Mailer works for his modern post WWII style. Mailer is gritty and extreme. His works are often detailed and meticulous, but the depth of insight he achieves into the minds of protagonist is uniquely profound and I’m a sucker for a good mental analysis.
The Executioner’s Song is no exception. The book falls into a small category of non-fiction novels. It is a work of fiction with 3rd person omniscient viewpoint, but it is based entirely are detailed fact and reports involving the life of Gary Gilmore. The only true fiction of this novel is the insights into what characters were thinking or direct filler dialogue, everything else is based on police reports and court transcripts. Gary Gilmore was executed in 1977 by his own wish, because he had murdered two people the previous year. Gilmore was the first person executed in the US after a 10 year moratorium on the death penalty and his case led to changes that in many ways reversed public sentiment to where we are now…
The book does an excellent job of diving into the nuances of this particular case presenting the arguments of Gilmore and his right to die, while also providing the reader on an intensive narrative of virtually every aspect of his life, so that we fully understand Gilmore and how he came to be in his desperate position. If the moratorium for state executions hadn’t been reversed with Gilmore’s case, perhaps the US would still prohibit these today. Whatever the case, the supreme court deciding that Gilmore had a right to die or that the states had a right to execute him have had drastic and profound ripples that still shock our society today.
The novel speaks for itself and if this is an area of interest then I do recommend it, however it is a very, very long and detailed work. I should confess to you that I myself, did not have the energy or perseverance to finish this novel. I made it about half way and decided that I didn’t really enjoy reading it. This is not because of anything related to Norman Mailer or his writing. (There’s a lot of details and tangents that maybe don’t need to be included…) Rather it’s actually a complement to his design and portrayal of Gary Gilmore. Gilmore is a detestable person. He really is just a hard mind to constantly be sharing head space with. He’s very selfish. He assaults women. He’s racist, sexist, and overtly aggressive.
I work in mental health, reading is just a hobby for me. My day job involves being a coach to a lot of little, younger versions of Gary Gilmore. Boys who are taking the hard route in life. Boys who want to be loved, but go around it in ways that are simply aversive to society. It was hard for me to read Gary’s mindset, because the inner conflicts that he deals with are all too familiar to me. Those of us that try and try to help Gary Gilmores are often dealing with the profound challenge of assist someone who has help, but doesn’t seem to see the reality of their situation or lacks the capacity to make real changes in their life. When you are a coach for so many people, you want each and every one of them to go on and be successful in life, but the sad reality is that some of those young boys go on to make terrible decisions that impact the entire world around them.
Reading how Gary Gilmore struggled to get a foot in society is hard, because of how tangible it is to people I know. Reading about how he spiraled and then commits two murders on a whim is equally hard, because I could see so many of the boys I work with doing the same thing. Every time I picked up The Executioner’s Song it was hard for me to stomach Gilmore and his story, because I see it reflected in so many places around me. Like potential universes that could spin off and ruin any one of these troubled youths lives. The line between getting a life together and ruining it is so small sometimes, and some people seem to stubbornly want to push themselves over a cliff no matter who in their life is trying to catch them or hold them back from the edge.
I actually don’t think my inability to finish the novel has anything to do with Mailer or the book itself, but rather it is a compliment to the author, because he does such a good job displaying a mindset and person that really does exist all too often in our society. It’s a hard mindset to capture in writing, because the motives and self-destructive tendencies don’t always make sense. Yet… there are many people in this world who comprehend it like Gary Gilmore.
A final point, Gilmore doesn’t have a motive for the murders he commits. He’s on a downward spiral when he does, but he doesn’t have a good reason for committing murder. He just does it anyways. Most murders in stories involve a killer who has a reason. We, the reader, and the public like reasons, but often there isn’t one. Sometimes it really is just wrong time, place, and a person who was willing to pull that trigger. This is a really interesting distinction and I tip my hat to Norman Mailer yet again for helping us the reader understand the mindset of a protagonist who commits murder on a whim. It takes a great writer to capture that nuance.
~Caleb
Literary Reflections 