Norman Mailer's 'Executioner's Song': Why Did the Criminal Prefer the Death Penalty over a Life Sentence?

These two were known for their quarreling and bad-mouthing (both in word and by pen), but there was also an occasional gentlemen's agreement between them. Though both of them specialized in battling it out with other colleagues, no real battle ever broke out between them. Truman Capote (the first of the two) was heard to have said once that Norman Mailer (the second of the two) would never have written his major non-fiction work “The Executioner's Song” if Capote hadn't written his famous “In Cold Blood.” These two writers are among the most famous in contemporary American literature, and they also had a real fascination with crime. They brought this fascination into their writing, adding a touch of reality not merely to fit the facts into novels, but to use the methodology of fiction writing to discuss real events. This is why they are often thrown in with what has been called the New Journalism [style of writing] of American culture.

Mailer, who died in 2007 at the age of 84, distinguished between fiction writing that relied on real events and writing about reality in fiction-like ways, just as Capote did. Perhaps this distinction can be more clearly seen by comparing one of Mailer's first big works, “The Naked and the Dead,” in which the writer tells a fictional account of his life as a soldier in WWII, adapting himself and those around him in the war into fictional personalities, to the book we shall presently consider, “The Executioner's Song.”

It might be said that Mailer divided his work into two spheres. For instance, his last book, “The Castle in the Forest,” published just months before he died, narrates parts of Adolf Hitler's childhood as if it were history — but this book belongs within the sphere of fiction. As for “The Executioner's Song,” it is essentially 1,000 pages of journalism in which Mailer chronicles the life and death of the American criminal Gary Gilmore, who was executed by firing squad in 1977, after given the choice between life in prison and the death penalty. He chose to be executed because the weight of death, according to Mailer, was lighter to him than life in prison. Mailer began [his story] with the idea of Gilmore's choosing death, and [the book] became a long and astonishing text, difficult to classify literarily or intellectually, though it logically belongs in the same sphere as Truman Capote's “In Cold Blood.”

A group had been sent from New York Magazine to investigate and write a piece on the execution of the two murderers of “In Cold Blood,” who had killed a family of farmers. The journalists (or at least one of them) ended up being fascinated by the murderer. So Capote decided to turn the investigation into a long story, sneaking into it not merely the psychology of the criminal, his own justifications for what happened and so on, but also that mysterious allure whereby we sometimes become fascinated by criminals and start thinking about the crime as a work of fine art, as the English [essayist] Thomas De Quincey would describe it. Capote's fascination with the murderers of “In Cold Blood” clearly gets the credit for the birth of that novel. Likewise, Norman Mailer's fascination with Gary Gilmore was the main influence for “Executioner's Song.” Gilmore, of course, has in some sense achieved immortality thanks to this book, which is considered one of Normal Mailer’s finest works.

Gilmore is basically nothing more than a common criminal who committed two crimes in the beginning of 1977.* He then stood trial and was sentenced to be executed. Though he was encouraged to appeal the decision in order to lighten the sentence to life in prison, he refused, preferring death. This preference has remained mysterious. Mailer's book sought to shed light on the matter: He told us that Gilmore was raised as somewhat of an orphan in a Mormon environment, where there is a belief in life after death (with views ranging from reincarnation to immortality of the spirit). It's likely that Norman Mailer decided to emphasize this theme of immortality since he was taken up at the time with writing a fictional account of ancient Egypt which, fours years after “Executioner's Song” was published, would manifest itself as the novel “Ancient Evenings.” There's no need to belabor the point here of how immortality was the driving force behind “Ancient Evenings.” This theme connects the two works in Mailer's mind.

The execution of Gary Gilmore, which took place in Utah, was the first performed by a U.S. state since capital punishment had been reinstated in 1976. It's clear that this added a new element to “The Executioner's Song,” and made its adoption possible on the one hand by those that were trying to push the authorities to abolish execution as a legal ruling, and on the other, those who saw execution as preferable to life in prison.

In any event, Mailer would say later on that he didn't write this book for ideological reasons or from a desire to render a conclusive opinion on the issue, but out of an aesthetic and human concern. Instead of resorting to a narrative form, he composed most of the book from discussions he held with the murderer’s family members, friends and acquaintances. Mailer made his book in two parts. The first concentrated on the events as they happened: Gilmore's committing his double crime, his arrest and the trial leading up to his execution, which included the discussion of documents related to the trial and in particular, Gilmore’s pleading his preference of execution over prison. In the first section of the book, Norman Mailer tells us of Gilmore's childhood and his unfortunate upbringing and his admission first into correctional facilities and then to prison a number of times for misdemeanors. This section focuses particularly on the many months that passed between the young criminal's leaving prison the last time and the committing of his final double crime, which quickly got him into jail and on trial.

As for the second section, Mailer focuses on the trial itself, especially the final stages when the ruling was issued in favor of execution. The attorneys — even the public prosecutor — began trying to convince Gilmore to appeal the ruling. There was then a violent conflict between Gilmore and his attorneys about this issue: He refused to appeal and insisted on being executed without offering a convincing justification. On the other hand, the attorneys were insisting he appeal, not because they were particularly concerned for Gilmore, but because they didn't want to give their state a bad reputation as the first at that time to implement the death penalty. With this in mind, one can read these wonderful pages of Norman Mailer’s book imagining this unconventional revolt by Gilmore against the state of Utah amid tensions about the case playing out on the national level, as well as the issue of capital punishment.

Mailer (1923-2007) offered an explanation that was new and remarkable at the time: the question of Gilmore's affiliation with Mormon thought. It wasn't perfectly clear at the time to the general public. In any event, Norman Mailer’s book offered a new contribution to [the genre of] American writing that reached its peak at that time, and was subsequently emulated in a number of countries. I find a great predecessor in Émile Zola and his literary school of naturalism.

This contribution of Mailer's finally earned him the estimable [reputation as] a great writer, after having failed to win much praise for the number of books he’d written in the more than two decades since publishing his first novel, “The Naked and the Dead.” Such is his habit: He comes out with a great work that causes a great stir and dialogue [around it]. He's then completely forgotten and is forced to ignite a literary war until he returns years later with a great book. First comes the stir, then comes a classic.

*Editor’s note: Gilmore was executed in January 1977 for the two murders he committed in the summer of 1976.