If you’re thinking 2008 might be the year you finally get around to reading Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, you might first like to take a look at this list of Eleven Things You Need to Know About Executioner’s Song from Critical Mass. Marc Weingarten rightly focuses much of the list on Larry Schiller, who researched Gilmore’s life and death and appears as a character in the book.
If you’re thinking 2008 might be the year you finally get around to reading One of the most fascinating aspects of The Executioner’s Song is the way it foreshadowed or perhaps even helped create the criminal-media complex we associate with O. J. (and Larry Schiller). The book is, in a way, self-documenting — it records and reflects on the way it was researched and written — which makes it much more transparent than, say, In Cold Blood.
Filed under: authors, books, media, reading | Tagged: Critical Mass, Norman Mailer, Larry Schiller, The Executioner's Song, Gary Gilmore, Marc Weingarten, O. J. Simpson, capital punishment, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
