The Executioner's Song cover art

The Executioner's Song

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The Executioner's Song

By: Norman Mailer
Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton
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About this listen

Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in a brand-new edition.

Arguably the greatest book from America's most heroically ambitious writer, The Executioner's Song follows the short, blighted life of Gary Gilmore who became famous after he robbed two men in 1976 and killed them in cold blood. After being tried and convicted, he immediately insisted on being executed for his crime. To do so, he fought a system that seemed intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death. And that fight for the right to die is what made him famous.

Mailer tells not only Gilmore's story, but those of the men and women caught in the web of his life and drawn into his procession toward the firing squad. All with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a restraint that evokes the parched landscape and stern theology of Gilmore's Utah.

The Executioner's Song is a trip down the wrong side of the tracks to the deepest source of American loneliness and violence. It is a towering achievement - impossible to put down, impossible to forget.

©1980 Norman Mailer (P)2018 Hachette Audio Biographical Fiction Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction True Crime Crime Fiction Mormon Biography

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All stars
Most relevant  
A long long read but for the most part worth sticking with, some annoying bits where characters name listed before every line they have in a conversation with another person? Who else is in the conversation, between 2 persons???

Worth it

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Executioners song - to long, I got quite bored of this book
And I sure like a lot of people got a little offended at the crude language & attention paid
to the murderer & not the victims
Also how crazy the American justice system is
I most probably have a lot more to say on the book, but it would get just as boring

Executioners song - to long

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I have read this book 2 times and watched the movie even more times. My adhd found it irritating how the performer pronounced Gilmore and Excecution. other than that small thing I loved it all!!!

Just as good as reading it.

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I thought some of the dialogue was repetitive and made the book unnecessarily long.

Good story and well written by Mailer.

OK but very long

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...having, sadly, been living next door to a sociopathic narcissist for 20 years, i was once again able to advance my own understanding of complicated personality disorders....while being taken on an amazing journey in literature. unlike my neighbor, or should i say through the knowledge gained from being targeted by her warped mind, i was able to feel gary's potential and humor and pain...while still holding on to the believe that no one has the right to cause havoc in other peoples lives without facing justice....and so, all one can do when encountering these people is to stay away....sad....

...an amazing work....

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Totally got immersed in this book. Poignant, perfectly long, never boring. Wonderfully dramatised, and not a detail missed.

Highly recommended

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Firstly if you are listening on speakers make sure there are no children or anyone of a delicate disposition around!

It is very good, very interesting. There is no spoiler here but at the end there is a most bizarre disclaimer about it being fiction and similarity to any living person to any of the characters portrayed is purely co-incidental - what?! Presumably the publisher got cold feet and decided they had better put that in to try and cover themselves at the end!

That said as you listen you wonder how some of the events and dialogue has been sourced, especially prior to Gilmore's arrest when he is out free?

But highly enjoyable and thoroughly recommended.

Entertaining to the end

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The definitive story of the complicated Gary Gilmore
Possibly Mailers best work
No sympathy/no disgust
Many many lives destroyed by this one time news interest
and future cult hero Gary Gilmore
Now hopefully seen as not the psychopath or serial killer that people imagine him as. Just as a man who’s spent most of his life in prison. Given the option of the rest of his life in prison or death he took the death penalty
And that’s when the state didn’t know what to do

The Executioner Song

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This was a sprawling, disturbing and overly detailed story. Brilliant narration, but ultimately tiresome listen.

Impressive but too long

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An epic telling of the Gary Gilmore story. So many characters and detail. I must confess I skipped significant chunks of it because they took me away from the core narrative. That was a personal choice and no reflection on the quality of the work.

Exhaustive

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