Volume 26, Number 19 · December 6, 1979
Death for Sale
By Diane Johnson
The Executioner's Song
by Norman Mailer
Little, Brown, 1,056 pp., $16.95
Lately we have been seeing more of these 'true life' novels, as Norman Mailer has termed this one about Gary Gilmore, the Utah killer who insisted upon being executed. Perhaps it's not so much because truth is stranger than fiction as because our interest in subjectivity has reached a point where no one but old nannies observes a distinction. Or maybe it's just a spinoff from the mini-cassette. All novels are based on life, of course, and if they aren't we don't like them, but some are based on history as well, and then it seems easier for some reason to accept ancient history, and speeches from the mouth of Napoleon, than from real people who are still alive. Different conventions seem to apply, nagging questions of veracity intrude. However powerful one finds this book, there are reservations one may feel about the genre and about its social implications—if only what to make of the literary ambulance-chasing that the true-life novel encourages.
Review, 3459 words
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