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    Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song: Based on the Book by Norman Mailer
    Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song: Based on the Book by Norman Mailer
    Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song: Based on the Book by Norman Mailer
    Ebook63 pages45 minutes

    Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song: Based on the Book by Norman Mailer

    By Worth Books

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    About this ebook

    So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Executioner’s Song tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Norman Mailer’s book.
     
    Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
     
    This summary of The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer includes:
    • Historical context
    • Part-by-part summaries
    • Detailed timeline of key events
    • Profiles of the main characters
    • Important quotes
    • Fascinating trivia
    • Glossary of terms
    • Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
     
    About The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer:
     
    Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Executioner’s Song tells the story of Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer whose death penalty sentence became a lightning rod for public debate over capital punishment.
     
    Though it reads like a novel, the book is a magnum opus of creative nonfiction, drawing from reams of documents and countless hours of interviews to paint a nuanced picture of Gilmore and the events that led up to his 1979 execution by firing squad.
     
    The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 31, 2017
    ISBN9781504043700
    Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song: Based on the Book by Norman Mailer
    Author

    Worth Books

    Worth Books’ smart summaries get straight to the point and provide essential tools to help you be an informed reader in a busy world, whether you’re browsing for new discoveries, managing your to-read list for work or school, or simply deepening your knowledge. Available for fiction and nonfiction titles, these are the book summaries that are worth your time.  

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      Book preview

      Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song - Worth Books

      Contents

      Context

      Overview

      Summary

      Timeline

      Cast of Characters

      Direct Quotes and Analysis

      Trivia

      What’s That Word?

      Critical Response

      About Norman Mailer

      For Your Information

      Bibliography

      Copyright

      Context

      The 1977 execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was a significant moment in American history. It was the first execution following the 1976 reinstitution of the death penalty, and it was Gilmore himself who fought for his own capital punishment. Famously, before facing the firing squad, his last words were, Let’s do it.

      The Executioner’s Song, Norman Mailer’s 1,000-plus-page tour de force and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is a stylistically groundbreaking work, and is regarded as a departure from Mailer’s signature style, in that his perspective is absent. It is based on painstaking research, much of it conducted by Mailer’s collaborator, journalist Lawrence Schiller. Schiller embarked on the project of documenting Gary Gilmore’s life and death and became a major character in the story.

      Sometimes regarded as a nonfiction novel, it reads like fiction—at times, even like poetry—and is, like Truman Capote’s renowned In Cold Blood, a powerful contribution to the genre of creative nonfiction. It’s also significant for raising ethical questions about capital punishment in the United States, an issue that remains hotly contested today. The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups endeavored to negate his death-penalty sentence, concerned that it would set a precedent for additional capital punishments to be inflicted upon minorities, but Gilmore angrily rejected their position and support. Apprehension about racial inequity in the criminal justice system is still widespread today.

      Overview

      The Executioner’s Song, Norman Mailer’s masterwork, tells the story of Gary Gilmore, a convicted murderer who was executed in Utah in 1977. Working from a massive compendium of court documents, interviews, and letters—many obtained and transcribed by Lawrence Schiller and his team—Mailer recreates details in novelistic fashion to create a complex and compassionate portrait of a flawed man who might otherwise have been remembered solely as a monster—or just a historical footnote.

      Gary Gilmore spent his early life in reform school and prison. Upon his release, at age thirty-five, his relatives supported him in his efforts to transition into a regular life, but he was still clearly struggling. When he met nineteen-year-old single mother Nicole Baker, two tortured souls found love—but the turbulent relationship that ensued spiraled downward fast.

      Gary returned to a life of crime, culminating in two murders in two days. He was sentenced to death—and, in a case that received much national attention—resisted attempts to be granted a stay of execution, instead choosing to face a firing squad. Gary and Nicole even attempted suicide in the interim before the execution was eventually carried out.

      The Executioner’s Song paints a nuanced and unflinching portrait of a man who committed heinous crimes and paid for them with his life. What’s remarkable about the book is that it recounts Gary’s life and deeds without judgment, leaving the reader to make his or her own assessment. At times, Gary comes across as sympathetic; at other times, his actions seem unfathomable—even, in fact, to himself. What’s clear is that there are no simple answers to explain why people do what they do.

      Summary

      Book One: Western Voices

      Part One: Gary

      After thirteen years of incarceration in reform school and, later, at a maximum-security prison, Gary Gilmore is finally

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