Rating: 
Summary: WOW
Review: "The Executioner's Song" is an incredibly intimidating book, and if reading the whole thing constitutes a great accomplishment than writing it is akin to a feat of God. The story is basically how Gary Gilmore killed two innocent people, was sentenced to death, became a pawn for money-hunters everywhere, and ended up, well... you guessed it. Here every possible incident is portrayed in Mailer's simple, matter-of-fact prose. One of the great things he does here is portray Gilmore as an articulate, caring (for the most part) human being rather than a cold-blooded killer. His cataclysmic relationship with Nicole is portrayed in all its ferocity, and his choice to go ahead with the execution without appeal is actually made out to be understandable from his point of view. If you have a good two months to set aside I suggest picking this book up. It may be best to have a notebook handy however; the cast of real-life characters is War and Peace-esque in its grandiosity and it is quite easy to lose track of who is who. Bravo Mr. Mailer.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many words
Review: A heart wrenching story that got drowned in too many irrelevant details. The way that Gilmore and his compatriots spiraled downwards is gripping, but the number of cigarettes smoked each day, banal conversations, and details of each person's daily life, made me lose interest in these miserable people after the first 800 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: I Could Finish It But I Won't
Review: Arrogant windbag, Norman Mailer, is at his most self-indulgent in this one. This thing needed an editor, and why can't Mailer just tell a story without resorting to excess detail and egotistical meanderings? Geez Mailer, you're not as great as you think you are so just tell the story and stop pretending like you're some kind of literary god, cause you're not, no matter how many awards you've won. Why don't you go and stab your wife again. Maybe that will do something for your writing. Because as it stands you got nothin.
Rating:
Summary: Much Ado About Nothing
Review: Executioner's Song is the story of Gary Gilmore; the first convicted murderer to be executed after the death penalty was restored in the United States. Gilmore, a career criminal who had spent one half of his life incarcerated, had been sentenced to death for robbing and killing two people. He did not want to spend any more time behind bars so he insisted that the State of Utah carry out his sentence. Norman Mailer makes a verbose attempt to turn Gilmore's story into an epic. Not having much to work with, he exaggerates the story to the point that some claims seem unreal. An example would be Gilmore's mother having had a strong feeling when he was three years old that his life would someday end by execution. Other trivial details include allusions to the Gilmore family being related to Houdini, the great escape artist. While trying to turn Gilmore's relationship with his lover Nicole, who is a lost and aimless soul with a taste for drugs, into a modern Romeo And Juliet, Mailer is uncharacteristically brief when describing his victims. The story of Gary Mark Gilmore could have been the subject of a fine true crime book. However, Norman Mailer's extra long version turned it into a melodramatic account that does justice to no one.
Rating:
Summary: long, but worth your time
Review: Few authors could pull this off: to write a book about a crazed sociopath, his grim and pathetic life, his senseless crimes and the legal hassles they trigger and do it all while holding the reader's interest for more than a 1400 pages. Plus Mailer does it all using a clipped, jarring writing style that draws the reader in. It makes for an amazing book. One note: a previous poster made mention of Lawrence Schiller's small contribution to the book. Giving credit where it is due, my understanding is that Schiller did a large part of the homework, long before Mailer ever bought a plane ticket to Utah. Schiller spent months doing the legwork; Mailer contributed the awesome writing (and I'm not even a Mailer fan -- none of his other books even come close!)
Rating:
Summary: An amazing journey
Review: For anyone interested in the criminal mind (and although I think it's sick at times, I am), this is an incredible book. The author takes the reader on a journey from the release of Gary Gilmore from prison to the murders he committed, his trial, sentencing and fight for his sentence to be carried out. The author tries to walk through Gilmore's childhood and relationship with Nicole Baker to trace the makings of a murderer. This book reveals a murderer as a human being, albeit not a good one by his own admission. For me, it brought forth the complexities of the human mind and what it is capable of as well the the two-sidedness of the whole death penalty issue.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy of the Pulitzer Prize
Review: Hands-down the finest piece of journalism I have ever read. The story of Gary Gilmore has a practically infinite number of issues and sub-issues and Mailer just nails them all with a towering, Pulitzer-worthy effort. Rather than ramrod his own personal opinions, Mailer allows the Legal system, the Penal system, and the Media to define themselves. Perhaps the most gripping theme of the book is its portrayal of ordinary people performing under extraordinary pressure, especially Gilmore himself, who combines a fascinating dichotomy of homicidal violence with deep and intelligent introspection, and under extreme duress shows himself to be a man of unwavering and unimpeachable principle. Tirelessly researched and written in a reserved and simplistic manner, the book is simply astonishing.
Rating:
Summary: The finest book ever written in the true crime genre!
Review: Having read more than 150 true crime books, I feel qualified to tell you that Norman Mailer has written the finest, by far, tome of the genre. The story of Gary Gilmore and Nicole Baker reads, at times, like a white trash Romeo & Juliet. The movie of the same title did a great injustice to Gary Gilmore. Yes, he was a thief and a murderer, but he was also an extremely intelligent and artistic man. Gilmore ended up spending 18 of his 36 years institutionalized in one form or another, so when the state of Utah sentenced him to die in 1976 Gary fought to make them follow through with their threat. He, as well as anyone, knew what prison was like and that he wanted no more of that kind of life. This is one of the only 1,000+ page books that left me wanting more when it was over. Mailer had access to nearly everyone needed to pull off this monumental undertaking. The narrative is stripped of frills and the author's opinions are held in check beautifully when you consider the inflammatory nature of the subject matter. Mailer also does an admirable job of letting Gilmore's victims appear as human beings, not merely as the props used by Gilmore to achieve immortality and release. This book has the potential to spark debate on a variety of issues that still make headlines today, such as prison reform, incartceration v. education, the death penalty as a deterrent, right to die. Gilmore's case was monumental in regard to American justice. Gilmore himself was a complex and fascinating individual with underdeveloped emotional control and no social skills to speak of. He was taught how to be an adult in institutions. Mailer does not flinch or miss a single beat. He tells the story of Gary Gilmore and the lives that Gilmore touched and/or destroyed. He does not take any obvious liberties to fit the story to his own beliefs. I was not a fan of Mailer until I read this book. It is one of the top five books I have ever had the privilege of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Norman Mailer delivers a masterpiece of work
Review: I first read the Executioner's Song several years ago and was fascinated by it then. I have just read it again and the same holds true now. Nothing that I have ever read before compares with this book.
The true account of Gary Gilmore and those who's lives he forever affected will leave you literally haunted. The true story of one man's attempt to reintroduce himself into society after half a lifetime locked away in the prison system only to commit double murder a short time after he is out of prison. And his personal battle to make the State of Utah execute him only nine months after he was let out of prison is a tragic and gripping portrayal of American History.
Norman Mailer's delivery of this story is more like a window into the actual lives of Gary Gilmore and his girlfriend Nicole. It's not like your reading a book but rather being transported into their realm. I at times found myself completely depressed when reading certain parts of the book. I had to put it down for a time because it was upsetting. The book contains themes that deal with religion, sexual abuse, human rights, the law, suicide, love, and manipulation just to name a few.
I came away with the sense that I knew these people intimately. that I knew their friends and family members.I was caught up in the inner turmoil of the ill fated lovers Gary and Nicole. The last half of the book chronicals the lives of the lawyers, people who worked for the ACLU, and others who become involved with Gary. At times there are so many people involved in the circus like atmosphere that surrounds the case that you easily forget who is who.But this book is based on reality and these people all played a part in the case. Some large and some small.
This book is a keeper for one's bookshelf. An outstanding piece of American Literature from a gifted writer.
Rating:
Summary: Better the second time around!!
Review: I first read this masterpiece in 1978 I believe - the year it was published. At that time living in the West, the Gary/Nicole saga was fresh in the memory of any American that watched television or read the newspapers. It was impossible to escape. This was my first Mailer and I wondered what more could he bring to this vastly over covered story. By the end of the book, the story that I thought I knew in its entirety took on a whole new array of dimension. As Mailer peeled down layer after layer of the desperate lives and dreams of these doomed lovers, I realized I had known nothing about the "real" Gary Gilmore; and how pathetically hollow, vacant and void our "news" coverage was. Things I had known in black and white, were now multiple shades of gray and as cloudy and hazy as Gary's own recollections of his deeds. After twenty- three or so years, and a few Mailers later, I decided to give it another read to see how it held up. The experience was even more profound the second time around. My feelings about the events and characters had changed somewhat, but reading this book again was as chilling, stirring and disturbing as the first time. Some criticize Mailer's verbosity, but when he describes a room, a bed, a shirt, a house, it's like looking at a multi-layered painting. The more you read, the more you see, and no one else can encompass and transport you the way he does. You can almost smell Gary's rank breath, and feel the vertigo of spilling into the dark, frightening and inevitable climax that you know from the first chapter, he will never escape. Mailer never preaches or tries to inflict his own values or morals upon the reader. He tells it like it is and expects you to be able to draw your own conclusions, and by the range of comments of the readers here, I'd say he accomplishes that quite well. His fascination and attraction to the outlaw/misfit is a theme common to many writers and if you've read Mailer previously you know he could never resist one as complex as Gary. This was the book that only he could have undertaken and written so precisely; so hauntingly true to life. In retrospect, I have to wonder if Mailer realized the enormous social and political impact this event and this book would have on contemporary American history. Never one to shy from controversy; even he must now gasp at how this act of desperation and determination of this one man, Gary Gilmore, changed the direction of our judicial system for the next two decades. I don't understand why every political science student in this country does not know the name of Gary Gilmore and is not required to read this book. Gilmore and the rebirth of capitol punishment will remain synonomous in our American psyche forever. The sense of tragedy and hopelessness is overwhelming from beginning to end. From Gary's early prison days, being tied down on a bed for weeks, being shot up with drugs that destroyed all emotion down to his very soul. They ate away the core of his humanness and the thing that he became was capable of the very same cruelties that he had endured. There are no winners in this disturbing and painful portrait of America. We can only hope we learn and grow from it and prevent the Gary's of the future from the wrath of the demons born and bred on cruelty, apathy and ignorance.
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