The life story of double-murderer Gary Gilmore and a new,
impressive book for Mailer, a thousand-page leviathan achieved at
an awesome price. Goodbye, self-advertising, two-fisted clown-drunk
Mailer. Hello, relentlessly objective Invisible Norman. Indeed, the
tone, the voice, the man himself seem at first entirely gone, until
we notice how vividly the figure of Gilmore dominates every page as
he manipulates the world from his jail cell; it's as if Mailer,
always his own existential hero, has found one with even stronger
credentials. Before his death at 36, Gilmore had spent all but four
years of his adolescent/adult life in jail. Here, we follow him
from his release on parole from the federal penitentiary at Marion,
Illinois, in April 1976 to his execution at Utah State Prison in
January 1977, a nine-month period in which Gilmore spent only four
months flee. He was paroled when his cousin Brenda guaranteed him a
home and a job. Self-educated, Gilmore had a nice vocabulary, a
definite drawing talent, and a knack for writing; he exercised
regularly and was generally fearless. But he'd been an emotional
child, we learn from flashbacks, boorishly insensitive to the
effect of his instant explosions on others. And now, in his
newfound parole freedom, his volatility became a weapon that
terrorized others and let him get his own way. He also brought his
prison values with him; to cheat, to steal, or to rape were as
inconsequential and natural as breathing. But within a few weeks
he'd moved in with Nicole Baker, a much-married 19-year-old mother
of two, a sexy, sensitive girl-woman (Gary's "elf") who fell for
him in the hardest possible way. He beat her; she moved out and hid
in a nearby town. And after her desertion, he was wired for
disaster; he murdered a gas-station attendant and a motel clerk,
was recognized and arrested. A rapid trial and sentencing found him
on Death Row. He chose death by firing squad and refused to allow
an appeal; he deserved to die, he felt, and he detested the
prospect of a life sentence - he'd already spent over 18 years in
prison. So began the massive efforts of others to save him against
his will. Utah's entire judicial system was called into question.
And, more important, no one had been executed in the U.S. for ten
years. Would his be the breakthrough case re-establishing capital
punishment and condemning Death Row prisoners everywhere? Gilmore,
meanwhile, had sold the rights to his life story to Larry Schiller,
a journalist-filmmaker (who put together Mailer's Marilyn
bio-package), and, in Mailer's dramatization, he becomes the third
principal - a hustler who undergoes a profound moral education in
the course of the Gilmore countdown. These three are magnificently
drawn and placed against the array of persons who've been stabbed
in one way or another by Gilmore's tragic double nature - and,
working chiefly with Schiller's tapes, Mailer has pulled off a
crafty portrait, a shrewd reconstruction, a compelling projection
of his own nature through that of a truly doomed man. (Kirkus
Reviews)
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDREW O'HAGAN In the summer of 1976 Gary
Gilmore robbed two men. Then he shot them in cold blood. For those
murders Gilmore was sent to languish on Death Row - and could
confidently expect his sentence to be commuted to life
imprisonment. In America, no one had been executed for ten years.
But Gary Gilmore wanted to die, and his ensuing battle with the
authorities for the right to do so made him into a world-wide
celebrity - and ensured that his execution turned into the most
gruesome media event of the decade.
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