Pulitzer Prize Fiction Winner
The Executioner's Song
by Norman Mailer
Summary
A vast nonfiction novel reconstructing the life, crimes, and 1977 Utah execution of Gary Gilmore, the first prisoner the United States put to death after it reinstated capital punishment. Drawing on interviews and documents, Mailer adopts a stripped down, near anonymous prose to render the small town textures of the American West and the legal machinery surrounding Gilmore's death. The book is a landmark in the literary treatment of true crime.
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Historical Context & Significance
A controversial choice for the Fiction category since it drew on real events. It defined the True Crime genre as a high art literary form.