Summary and Analysis of The Executioner's Song

Based on the Book by Norman Mailer

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• Publisher: Worth Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781504043700
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

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.

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 facing release—and despite her husband Johnny’s reservations, his Mormon cousin Brenda sponsors Gary for parole. He’ll divide his time between her home in the Mormon town of Provo, Utah, and the home of her parents, Vern and Ida. Vern secures a job for Gary at his shoe repair shop.

Despite Brenda’s heartfelt efforts to help Gary acclimate to life outside prison, there are signs he’s ill-adjusted and not equipped for regular social situations, such as his aggressive approach to picking up women, crude table manners during Easter dinner, and a nerve-racking episode behind the wheel of his friend Rikki Baker’s car.

When Gary disappears overnight and turns up in Idaho, he explains to Brenda that he hitched a ride in a pickup truck, fended off the driver’s homosexual advances with punches, and got stopped by cops while hightailing it to a hospital. Probation officer Mont Court gives him a pass on crossing state lines, reasoning that cracking down on the parole violation could spur Gary to act out again.

Gary appears to have instantly found his soulmate when he meets Rikki’s sister Nicole, an attractive nineteen-year-old single mother of two. Not long after hooking up— much to Brenda and Johnny’s dismay—they get tattoos of each other’s names.

Need to Know: Gary Gilmore spent most of his early years locked up—and emerged bent on making up for lost time, particularly when it came to meeting women. But when he crossed paths with Nicole, it was clear that Gary’s life would change irrevocably—for better or for worse.

Part Two: Nicole

Gary soon moves into Nicole’s house in Spanish Fork, Utah, where she lives with her two children, Sunny and Jeremy (Gary affectionately calls the latter “Peabody”). Thrice married and divorced at nineteen, Nicole finds herself increasingly intoxicated by Gary’s adoration. She feels accepted and loved for the first time in a young life already scarred by recurring abuse. Nicole quits her factory job and begins collecting welfare, doting on Gary—and relying on him as sole the breadwinner.

Those around them are uneasy about the sudden connection—Nicole’s mother, Kathryne, isn’t pleased her daughter is dating an older ex-con—but for Nicole, her life with Gary, drinking beer and smoking pot together at night, and prancing around naked while he admires her body, is heavenly.

Nicole gradually opens up about her past, including the sexual abuse by “Uncle Lee,” a friend of her father’s, when she was just eleven. She also tells him about her three failed marriages: to Jim Hampton, whom she met after she escaped from a mental hospital; to Jim Barrett, Sunny’s father; and to Steve Hudson, a churchgoer whom she ditched after two weeks of wedded non-bliss. Her son Jeremy’s father, Kip Eberhardt, was abusive. Then came a relationship with Joe Bob Sears, who physically and mentally abused her, locking her in a room and calling her his “slave”—until Barrett returned to help her escape.

When Nicole gets a dark vibe from Gary, she wonders aloud if he’s the devil—a question, he says, he’s heard before.

Need to Know: Nicole’s history of being abused and degraded by men offers a clue to why she basks in the affection of someone like Gary. She is able to overlook—or even embrace—his dark side, as long as she can count on his adoration.

Part Three: Gary and Nicole

Less than two months into his whirlwind romance with Nicole, the seams of Gary’s life begin to fray. A kiss on the cheek for his cousin Toni’s twelve-year-old daughter, Annette, raises concerns for deeply religious neighbor Peter Galovan. Irate, Gary picks a fight with Pete—and ends up with his own face busted wide open. Pete decides to press charges. Nicole goes to confront Pete, who insists that Gary wants to kill him, and threatens, “If he don’t get you, I will.” Moved by her passionate plea, Pete agrees to drop the charges, and even says a prayer for Gary.

Gary’s temper is stoked further by car troubles (his Mustang needs a new battery), money troubles (he has to borrow money for a replacement battery), and excessive drinking (he regularly steals six-packs of beer). He is fixated on trading in his Mustang for a white truck, but dealer Val Conlin insists he cough up a significant down payment. Gary is frustrated, and keeps badgering Val.

Nicole is troubled by her man’s habit of shoplifting, and is unnerved when he comes home with several boxes containing guns. The bloom of her love is fading. He hits her for the first time—and apologizes, but the emotional damage is done; she’s been down this road before. She tells him, “I want to die,” and he responds by holding a knife blade to her stomach to call her bluff.

The downward spiral continues. Gary takes Nicole’s Mustang, with her and the kids in it, to sell the guns, and ends up in a violent argument with her. He steals a tape deck, crashes into a car while fleeing the scene, and ends up getting Nicole’s car impounded. Terrified of returning to prison for parole violation, Gary turns himself in. Again, his probation officer Mont Court prefers to see him cooperative than to see him locked back up.

The close call reignites Nicole’s love for Gary, but she’s seeing clean-cut (and married) businessman Roger Eaton on the side, and starts up again with her ex-husband Jim Barrett. Barrett helps her move belongings out of the house she’d been sharing with Gary and hides her whereabouts from him. When Gary encounters Nicole again, after she stops by the house to pick up her vacuum cleaner, he tries to keep her from driving away—but she points a gun at him through the window of her car. Later, Gary appalls his cousin Brenda by declaring that he wants to kill Nicole.

Need to Know: For Gary Gilmore and Nicole Baker, the honeymoon phase didn’t last long. At first it seemed like destiny that these two damaged souls found each other, but they couldn’t maintain any semblance of a functional relationship.

Part Four: The Gas Station and the Motel

Gary manages to cobble together a deal for the long-coveted truck. He shows up at the home of Nicole’s mother, Kathryne, seeking Nicole, and ends up taking Nicole’s mentally unstable younger sister April for a ride. They end up back at Val Conlin’s to sign the papers for the truck. Val is emphatic that Gary had better stick to their agreed-upon schedule of payments.

Afterward, Gary stops off at the gas station and encounters young attendant Max Jensen, a devout Mormon and a married father. After robbing him at gunpoint, Gary orders Max into the bathroom and down on the floor—then shoots him twice in the head. Once for himself, once for Nicole, he says. April, waiting in the truck, is high on drugs and has no idea what occurred in the station. The two leave and go to a movie. Later, they spend the night in a motel room. She fends off his advances out of loyalty to her sister, and they sleep in separate beds.

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Table of contents

• Title
• Disclaimer
• Contents
• Context
• Overview
• Summary
• Timeline
• Cast of Characters
• Direct Quotes and Analysis
• Trivia
• What’s That Word?
• Critical Response
• About the Norman Mailer
• For Your Information
• Bibliography
• Copyright