NEW paperback

The Executioners Song Norman Mailer

Winner of the 1980 Pulitzer PrizeIn what is arguably his greatest book, Americas most heroically ambitious writer followsthe short, blighted career of Gary Gilmore, an intractably violent product of Americasprisons who became notorious for two reasons: first, for robbing two men in 1976, thenkilling them in cold blood; and, second, after being tried and convicted, for insisting ondying for his crime To do so, he had to fight a system that seemed paradoxically intent onkeeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to deathNorman Mailer tells Gilmores storyand those of the men and women caught up in hisprocession toward the firing squadwith implacable authority, steely compassion, and arestraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmores Utah TheExecutioners Song is a trip down the wrong side of the tracks to the deepest sources ofAmerican loneliness and violence It is a towering achievementimpossible to put down, impossible to forget