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Shot in the Heart
Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioner's Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a blacksheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man. It was a family destroyed by a multigenerational history of child abuse, alcoholism, crime, adultery, and murder. Mikal, burdened with the guilt of being his father's favorite and the shame of being Gary's brother, gracefully and painfully relates a murder tale "from inside the house where murder is born... a house that, in some ways, [he has] never been able to leave." Shot in the Heart is the history of an American family inextricably tied up with violence, and the story of how the children of this family committed murder and murdered themselves in payment for a long lineage of ruin. Haunting, harrowing, and profoundly affecting, Shot in the Heart exposes and explores a dark vein of American life that most of us would rather ignore. It is a book that will leave no reader unchanged.
416 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
About the author
Mikal Gilmore
18 books68 followersMikal Gilmore was born "Michael Gilmore," but later changed the spelling of his name. He was born February 9, 1951 to Frank and Bessie Gilmore.
In 1977, Gilmore's brother Gary, a convicted murderer, was the first person executed after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Gary Gilmore was executed for shooting two young Mormons, Max Jensen and Ben Bushnell, in cold blood. He was executed by firing squad in Utah. Mikal Gilmore's 1995 memoir, Shot in the Heart , details his relationship with Gary and their often troubled family, starting with the original Mormon settlers and continuing through to Gary's execution and its aftermath. Shot in the Heart received positive reviews, including a USA Today comment that states the book is "one of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five years." Gilmore's book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Gilmore was long interested in music, and in the early 1970s began writing articles for Rolling Stone. In 1999, Gilmore's chronology Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock and Roll was published by Anchor. In July 2009 Gilmore released another book, Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and its Discontents . It was published by Free Press.
In 1977, Gilmore's brother Gary, a convicted murderer, was the first person executed after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Gary Gilmore was executed for shooting two young Mormons, Max Jensen and Ben Bushnell, in cold blood. He was executed by firing squad in Utah. Mikal Gilmore's 1995 memoir, Shot in the Heart , details his relationship with Gary and their often troubled family, starting with the original Mormon settlers and continuing through to Gary's execution and its aftermath. Shot in the Heart received positive reviews, including a USA Today comment that states the book is "one of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five years." Gilmore's book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Gilmore was long interested in music, and in the early 1970s began writing articles for Rolling Stone. In 1999, Gilmore's chronology Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock and Roll was published by Anchor. In July 2009 Gilmore released another book, Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and its Discontents . It was published by Free Press.
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July 28, 2011
Mikal Gilmore was the "saved" son. Born after the restless years in the ditches of the back roads of America, running only to beat out another day, like stretching a junk yard car past empty to see how long it'll still go. Saved and kicked out of the family for his own good, because he could be too good, if he was lucky. It doesn't really feel good, or lucky. Second son Gary became famous for wishing his execution to be carried out (coughs as famously written about in Norman Mailer's book The Executioner's Song). He was dead long before then. Second youngest Gaylen was murdered. He was also asking for it (jealous husbands, alcoholism and killing himself every day). Like Gary, he was in jail a lot. There was a legacy to escape before then. Did the unchosen brothers choose it too?
Mikal ran away, became a music journalist (for Rolling Stone). Blah blah personal shit about me no one wants to read blah blah I knew how Mikal felt for being lucky that his father died when he did. Mikal was the favorite, as Gaylen was for a time (if you can't guess how Gaylen took that you're lucky), because he was too young to have his own personality outside of what his dad could project onto him. Frank Sr. was a vicious son of a bitch. A con artist with more identities than he had wives. Or was it the other way around? Blah blah Bessie reminded me of my grandmother laying over for the abuse and grossly favoring one child while grossly abusing another. Family crap. Ugh. I get the running away to save oneself thing (my grandmother's sister did just that. Her cousin recently contact the family after her husband died. He wouldn't let her while my grandfather was alive. No kidding!). I got too being the one to watch the fleeing shapes on the horizon.
Was it all a family curse? The symmetry was like a bloodied up face that no longer looks like a face. The fists don't need a spine (this family didn't have one. A backbone, that is) to hit and the bonelessness stands up under it because its filled of blood to keep on spilling. I don't know if it's fate. Bessie told them bogus stories about forced outtings to executions as a kid before her sons were ever arrested. Frank sr. believed he was the unclaimed son of Harry Houdini because of a lie his mother told. Nurture over nature, I'd say. The same face repeating in the family. Frank Jr, the oldest child, went to prison for NOT killing (Vietnam). It's irony (tastes like blood). Bessie was bitter over being her own family's black sheep (from a joyless for anyone who craved the tiniest bit of free will existence on a very mormon farm in a very mormon community in Utah). Did she urge one son, Mikal, to get out and the other, Gary, whom she identified as a fellow blacksheep to revenge her against the mormons she blamed for everything? Mikal believed so. Bessie comforted herself with tears and rage that the death of her son was all for the cause of the Mormon world against her. She must've believed Mikal to be the best of her and Gary the worst (she made a deal with her husband to allow the one son, Mikal, to be raised in "her faith"). Bessie brutalized her oldest son, Frank jr. because he was the product of an affair with her husband's son from another marriage. Frank sr. tried to beat Gary out of existence because he believed him to not be his son.
Mikal was once a mormon. Mormons believe in curses and spirits. (Ask me about the ultra glam mormon chick who once tried to convert me. This review is going to be long enough as it is.) Shot in the Heart doesn't work as well as a case for a curse. Can anyone explain to me how a woman blames her son because she fucked a man who wasn't her husband? Is there a curse for that? Is it called Thou Wilst Be A Psycho Bitch? I hex you into permanent PMS!
The book that Gilmore wanted to write was an attempt to be in his family after decades of being pushed out and then running as far as he could, the chance to know them through investigating them like a case to be solved. The interviews that Larry Schiller conducted that were used for Mailer's book. Prison records, interviewing former prison friends of his brother, relatives who were still living. It didn't work. He doesn't know them. The face repeating on Mikal that he doesn't want to see in the mirror is that of a man without family (as his father saw it, family being someone in exactly his own preferred image). His relationships break up, he has no children. What did they save him from???
WHAT ABOUT FRANK?!!!!
Shot in the Heart made me cry because it was cruel and the waste. Frank. It is telling that it isn't mentioned anywhere in The Executioner's Song that Frank was supporting his mother during her final years. She talks about dying the day she moved into her ugly trailer (her big tragedy was losing her pretty dream home). Yeah, I kinda hate this dead woman. Her ugly face repeated from her own family and then it picked up its own ugliness. She made a few faces and it got stuck that way. Frank who went to prison for refusing to kill anyone in the war. He was sentenced to three years in Fort Leavenworth (the money for lawyers were used up on repeat offending brothers), an unusually harsh punishment. Frank the only one who visited either of his brothers in jail. Frank who was ashamed of himself and stayed away from his brother so that he wouldn't embarrass him. The man who was sometimes homeless, ashamed of himself and afraid to shop in stores because the clerks might think him a shoplifter. It took Mikal too long to realize that he had a fucking family. He wasn't kicked out of it. They all chose to leave it. It should not have been an afterthought to look for his brother. He did the right thing but that he took so long to see it is why this book is only good and not great. Mikal was loved by two parents (for all the good that did) and Frank was hated by both. How can you ever understand families when that shit happens? Some people have all the luck and others get all the crap. Family isn't going to come from the (half hearted at that) echoes of Mormon religion rolling around in the empty caverns of dead people (Bessie, brother Gaylen). It's brotherhood.
The Executioner's Song was largely dependent on often very (self) biased testimony from the interviews taken by a man (Schiller) who I suspect didn't understand what was special about this story. (His talk with Mikal about the movie, directed by Schiller, confirmed it for me. He said that Tommy Lee Jones wasn't Gary but took you to the same place. No, he really didn't.) I took it with all the salt over the shoulder to ward off bad luck I could muster. Shot in the Heart, well, shoots down some of that. Gary's second nine year stretch in the big house wasn't because he was tasting what he could get when he was out (parole for art school). He was going to bust out his boyfriend. Gilmore barely admitted to himself that he had homosexual loves (starting while in juvie). He had a son that he believed to be dead (also not mentioned in 'Executioner's' from a [statutory? Or more] rape. The charges were dropped). He denied that his mother was anything but a saint. Still, the taste in the mouth is blood from chewing your tongue not to scream. The gravity of the true self weighing down the escapes from self to stay alive. I read more truth in those voices than in Mikal's (albiet understandable) desperate tracing of the path with a set conclusion in mind that it had been the destiny of their family. To find a voice, I suspect. To hear another voice to not be lonely, as Gary did? I'm not so sure.
Mikal had a save yourself upbringing. How could he understand fascination with what one COULD do that comes out of a self destructive streak? He tries to say that it could have been him, as if that would help him understand Gary. Not in the same way could it have been him (it wasn't Frank). Do you know something others don't know when you kill someone? When you are dead? Gary said he had a feeling he had already been there (death). I don't think he knew anything. It isn't a special club to be in when you have been abused. It's the self destructive just before that Gary could not resist, why no punishment ever stopped him from doing it again (as it did Frank jr. He never stole another candy bar). I got that out of The Executioner's Song. I got some things out of Shot in the Heart (it's a good book) too. In the same face way I find the meaning of family in that sensing of what's not being told. There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel and leaping anyway. It's his family so he would want to tell it to himself like it's a family reunion. But it wasn't family. There was Frank.
I stuck my face into the glossy pages of Mikal's Rolling Stone magazine and came out with these apples of A-to-z.
A is for Artist. He didn't want it. Do I take away the capital? artist. Fuck it. ARTIST. If you can't take it away from Whitney Houston...
Give me a B for Bicentennial shoelaces. Coulda said Bessie. We're black sheep against the farm, boy! I like the shoelaces. They were in the film. Elias Koteas rocked those suckers.
Cuckoo's nest. It was so nice he watched it twice.
Damned Death Wish. Demian. I liked Hesse's book too. I can just imagine what a Gary Gilmore goodreads review of that book would be...
Eyes donated to science. Did you think I'd execute another sentence here?
Firing squad! Father Frank sr and firing squad. Same difference.
The Ginger man. Wonder if he liked The Beastly Beatitudes of Baltazar B (GG and I have knowledge of the J.P. Donleavy ouevre in common). His dad may have loathed him for his name but alliteration is still good for something. Like being a super villain!
Houdini. He is not Gary's grandfather! Frank's dad thought he was. I can imagine him during his own prison stretch willing those nonexistant escape genes to come through.
IQ. Is this like when they say it's a shame if someone dies if they are pretty? It's a shame he killed. He had a high iq.
Johnny cash. If you had one day of freedom who would you listen to? It's the new desert island discs.
Killer.
Let's do this.
Mormons.
(Selective, of course) Nietzsche quoting. Nicole (selective, of course).
Oldness. The anti- the force from Star Wars. It'd be a black hole that sucks in everything good and reflects it back as dead. Don't try to keep any life in it. You aren't going to get any stinking pot purri out of the remains.
Proxilin the drug they turned Gary into a Frankenstein's monster on in prison. Pizza hut. They didn't let Gary have any during his execution party.
Queer. 1, 2, 3, 4...
Rape. 5, 6, 7, 8 shut the gates.
Solitary Aka the hole! Son. They told Gary that he died. He didn't. Was he born dead like Gary? Frank thought so. "There will always be a father." (His real last words!Nike better change that slogan now. Give your money to the man, Chinese kids! We're your daddy.) Indeed.
Texas. Gary was born there. It wasn't an affectation (as much) after all!
Utah. The only state to choose execution methods based on their religious beliefs (blood atonement by firing squad).
V for Verdict. V for Vendetta. Probably for venarial disease. I didn't check.
Witness.
X-con. What other words start with X? X-cape. (Please somebody get that reference.)
Yesterday.
Zzzzz zzz he slept when he was dead.
Mikal ran away, became a music journalist (for Rolling Stone). Blah blah personal shit about me no one wants to read blah blah I knew how Mikal felt for being lucky that his father died when he did. Mikal was the favorite, as Gaylen was for a time (if you can't guess how Gaylen took that you're lucky), because he was too young to have his own personality outside of what his dad could project onto him. Frank Sr. was a vicious son of a bitch. A con artist with more identities than he had wives. Or was it the other way around? Blah blah Bessie reminded me of my grandmother laying over for the abuse and grossly favoring one child while grossly abusing another. Family crap. Ugh. I get the running away to save oneself thing (my grandmother's sister did just that. Her cousin recently contact the family after her husband died. He wouldn't let her while my grandfather was alive. No kidding!). I got too being the one to watch the fleeing shapes on the horizon.
Was it all a family curse? The symmetry was like a bloodied up face that no longer looks like a face. The fists don't need a spine (this family didn't have one. A backbone, that is) to hit and the bonelessness stands up under it because its filled of blood to keep on spilling. I don't know if it's fate. Bessie told them bogus stories about forced outtings to executions as a kid before her sons were ever arrested. Frank sr. believed he was the unclaimed son of Harry Houdini because of a lie his mother told. Nurture over nature, I'd say. The same face repeating in the family. Frank Jr, the oldest child, went to prison for NOT killing (Vietnam). It's irony (tastes like blood). Bessie was bitter over being her own family's black sheep (from a joyless for anyone who craved the tiniest bit of free will existence on a very mormon farm in a very mormon community in Utah). Did she urge one son, Mikal, to get out and the other, Gary, whom she identified as a fellow blacksheep to revenge her against the mormons she blamed for everything? Mikal believed so. Bessie comforted herself with tears and rage that the death of her son was all for the cause of the Mormon world against her. She must've believed Mikal to be the best of her and Gary the worst (she made a deal with her husband to allow the one son, Mikal, to be raised in "her faith"). Bessie brutalized her oldest son, Frank jr. because he was the product of an affair with her husband's son from another marriage. Frank sr. tried to beat Gary out of existence because he believed him to not be his son.
Mikal was once a mormon. Mormons believe in curses and spirits. (Ask me about the ultra glam mormon chick who once tried to convert me. This review is going to be long enough as it is.) Shot in the Heart doesn't work as well as a case for a curse. Can anyone explain to me how a woman blames her son because she fucked a man who wasn't her husband? Is there a curse for that? Is it called Thou Wilst Be A Psycho Bitch? I hex you into permanent PMS!
The book that Gilmore wanted to write was an attempt to be in his family after decades of being pushed out and then running as far as he could, the chance to know them through investigating them like a case to be solved. The interviews that Larry Schiller conducted that were used for Mailer's book. Prison records, interviewing former prison friends of his brother, relatives who were still living. It didn't work. He doesn't know them. The face repeating on Mikal that he doesn't want to see in the mirror is that of a man without family (as his father saw it, family being someone in exactly his own preferred image). His relationships break up, he has no children. What did they save him from???
WHAT ABOUT FRANK?!!!!
Shot in the Heart made me cry because it was cruel and the waste. Frank. It is telling that it isn't mentioned anywhere in The Executioner's Song that Frank was supporting his mother during her final years. She talks about dying the day she moved into her ugly trailer (her big tragedy was losing her pretty dream home). Yeah, I kinda hate this dead woman. Her ugly face repeated from her own family and then it picked up its own ugliness. She made a few faces and it got stuck that way. Frank who went to prison for refusing to kill anyone in the war. He was sentenced to three years in Fort Leavenworth (the money for lawyers were used up on repeat offending brothers), an unusually harsh punishment. Frank the only one who visited either of his brothers in jail. Frank who was ashamed of himself and stayed away from his brother so that he wouldn't embarrass him. The man who was sometimes homeless, ashamed of himself and afraid to shop in stores because the clerks might think him a shoplifter. It took Mikal too long to realize that he had a fucking family. He wasn't kicked out of it. They all chose to leave it. It should not have been an afterthought to look for his brother. He did the right thing but that he took so long to see it is why this book is only good and not great. Mikal was loved by two parents (for all the good that did) and Frank was hated by both. How can you ever understand families when that shit happens? Some people have all the luck and others get all the crap. Family isn't going to come from the (half hearted at that) echoes of Mormon religion rolling around in the empty caverns of dead people (Bessie, brother Gaylen). It's brotherhood.
The Executioner's Song was largely dependent on often very (self) biased testimony from the interviews taken by a man (Schiller) who I suspect didn't understand what was special about this story. (His talk with Mikal about the movie, directed by Schiller, confirmed it for me. He said that Tommy Lee Jones wasn't Gary but took you to the same place. No, he really didn't.) I took it with all the salt over the shoulder to ward off bad luck I could muster. Shot in the Heart, well, shoots down some of that. Gary's second nine year stretch in the big house wasn't because he was tasting what he could get when he was out (parole for art school). He was going to bust out his boyfriend. Gilmore barely admitted to himself that he had homosexual loves (starting while in juvie). He had a son that he believed to be dead (also not mentioned in 'Executioner's' from a [statutory? Or more] rape. The charges were dropped). He denied that his mother was anything but a saint. Still, the taste in the mouth is blood from chewing your tongue not to scream. The gravity of the true self weighing down the escapes from self to stay alive. I read more truth in those voices than in Mikal's (albiet understandable) desperate tracing of the path with a set conclusion in mind that it had been the destiny of their family. To find a voice, I suspect. To hear another voice to not be lonely, as Gary did? I'm not so sure.
Mikal had a save yourself upbringing. How could he understand fascination with what one COULD do that comes out of a self destructive streak? He tries to say that it could have been him, as if that would help him understand Gary. Not in the same way could it have been him (it wasn't Frank). Do you know something others don't know when you kill someone? When you are dead? Gary said he had a feeling he had already been there (death). I don't think he knew anything. It isn't a special club to be in when you have been abused. It's the self destructive just before that Gary could not resist, why no punishment ever stopped him from doing it again (as it did Frank jr. He never stole another candy bar). I got that out of The Executioner's Song. I got some things out of Shot in the Heart (it's a good book) too. In the same face way I find the meaning of family in that sensing of what's not being told. There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel and leaping anyway. It's his family so he would want to tell it to himself like it's a family reunion. But it wasn't family. There was Frank.
I stuck my face into the glossy pages of Mikal's Rolling Stone magazine and came out with these apples of A-to-z.
A is for Artist. He didn't want it. Do I take away the capital? artist. Fuck it. ARTIST. If you can't take it away from Whitney Houston...
Give me a B for Bicentennial shoelaces. Coulda said Bessie. We're black sheep against the farm, boy! I like the shoelaces. They were in the film. Elias Koteas rocked those suckers.
Cuckoo's nest. It was so nice he watched it twice.
Damned Death Wish. Demian. I liked Hesse's book too. I can just imagine what a Gary Gilmore goodreads review of that book would be...
Eyes donated to science. Did you think I'd execute another sentence here?
Firing squad! Father Frank sr and firing squad. Same difference.
The Ginger man. Wonder if he liked The Beastly Beatitudes of Baltazar B (GG and I have knowledge of the J.P. Donleavy ouevre in common). His dad may have loathed him for his name but alliteration is still good for something. Like being a super villain!
Houdini. He is not Gary's grandfather! Frank's dad thought he was. I can imagine him during his own prison stretch willing those nonexistant escape genes to come through.
IQ. Is this like when they say it's a shame if someone dies if they are pretty? It's a shame he killed. He had a high iq.
Johnny cash. If you had one day of freedom who would you listen to? It's the new desert island discs.
Killer.
Let's do this.
Mormons.
(Selective, of course) Nietzsche quoting. Nicole (selective, of course).
Oldness. The anti- the force from Star Wars. It'd be a black hole that sucks in everything good and reflects it back as dead. Don't try to keep any life in it. You aren't going to get any stinking pot purri out of the remains.
Proxilin the drug they turned Gary into a Frankenstein's monster on in prison. Pizza hut. They didn't let Gary have any during his execution party.
Queer. 1, 2, 3, 4...
Rape. 5, 6, 7, 8 shut the gates.
Solitary Aka the hole! Son. They told Gary that he died. He didn't. Was he born dead like Gary? Frank thought so. "There will always be a father." (His real last words!Nike better change that slogan now. Give your money to the man, Chinese kids! We're your daddy.) Indeed.
Texas. Gary was born there. It wasn't an affectation (as much) after all!
Utah. The only state to choose execution methods based on their religious beliefs (blood atonement by firing squad).
V for Verdict. V for Vendetta. Probably for venarial disease. I didn't check.
Witness.
X-con. What other words start with X? X-cape. (Please somebody get that reference.)
Yesterday.
Zzzzz zzz he slept when he was dead.
September 10, 2015
One of a handful of nonfiction works I will always remember, as if it is branded inside of me, I keep Shot in the Heart on the shelf alongside James Ellroy's My Dark Places--made me understand in many ways the darkest heart of America. Mikal Gilmore tells the story of his murderer brother, Gary Gilmore, the last person executed by firing squad in America, for the murder of two hotel clerks in Provo Utah, which he demanded, as a way of 'blood atonement'--part of the family's strict Mormon code. A western story, an American story, how one home had created two such damaged men, but in two completely different ways--beyond darkness. The intensity of the violence and emotion still is alive in me, years after.
February 17, 2015
A little disjointed at times but overall a compelling narrative of Gary Gilmore, the first man to be executed in the US after the death penalty was reinstated. (The death penalty had been deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment by a 1972 ruling, but a new ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1976 upheld new death penalty statutes.)
I haven't read The Executioner's Song, though I've since ordered it, so I'm not sure how this compares. I have to believe that being written by Gary Gilmore's brother (the youngest of the four sons) gives this a depth and level of authenticity that only someone intimately involved with the main characters can provide.
I think the strength of this particular version is the reader gets a sense of the complicated family dynamic both long before, leading up to, and after the murders (which were both brutal and cold-blooded). These were four boys raised in a violent and dysfunctional home, equally brimming with love and hate, by two deeply scarred and dysfunctional individuals. The story of Gary's parents and their family history is almost more interesting than Gary himself.
At one point after Gary has been arrested for the murders his mother says:
And, no, I can't. But then there are a lot of things in Gary's family past and home life that I can't imagine. I think many of us experience some level of dysfunction growing up, but the Gilmores seem to represent the extreme of what some children are forced to deal with.
It really is a heartbreaking story, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a tear or two over Gary's execution and the impact it had on his family. Of course, it's easier to feel for Gary in this particular story, since his victims aren't the focus...and perhaps that is a shortcoming of this kind of book. That said, I am generally opposed to the death penalty and this particular story challenged me to explore those feelings at a much deeper level. I was particularly moved by this passage:
Again, not to diminish the pain and suffering of the victims and their families, but this particular presentation does seem to illustrate that the death penalty...the eye-for-an-eye mentality...is somewhat barbaric and somehow destructive to the men and women in our society that are directly involved in the process. Part of what makes this story so interesting is Gary waived all his rights to appeal. He wanted to die and fought his family when they tried to obtain a stay of the execution.
I should also add that this book focused less on the implications of Gary's execution and actually less on Gary and his crimes than one might expect in a retelling of his story. It focused primarily on the family unit as a whole with Mikal offering his own analysis and sharing his own journey. All in all, it worked, though whether it works for you or not may depend on your expectations going in.
I haven't read The Executioner's Song, though I've since ordered it, so I'm not sure how this compares. I have to believe that being written by Gary Gilmore's brother (the youngest of the four sons) gives this a depth and level of authenticity that only someone intimately involved with the main characters can provide.
I think the strength of this particular version is the reader gets a sense of the complicated family dynamic both long before, leading up to, and after the murders (which were both brutal and cold-blooded). These were four boys raised in a violent and dysfunctional home, equally brimming with love and hate, by two deeply scarred and dysfunctional individuals. The story of Gary's parents and their family history is almost more interesting than Gary himself.
At one point after Gary has been arrested for the murders his mother says:
Can you imagine what it feels like to mother a son whom you love that deprives two other mothers of their sons?
And, no, I can't. But then there are a lot of things in Gary's family past and home life that I can't imagine. I think many of us experience some level of dysfunction growing up, but the Gilmores seem to represent the extreme of what some children are forced to deal with.
It really is a heartbreaking story, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a tear or two over Gary's execution and the impact it had on his family. Of course, it's easier to feel for Gary in this particular story, since his victims aren't the focus...and perhaps that is a shortcoming of this kind of book. That said, I am generally opposed to the death penalty and this particular story challenged me to explore those feelings at a much deeper level. I was particularly moved by this passage:
There was no way to braced for the last seesawing of emotion. One moment you're forcing yourself to live through the hell of knowing that somebody you love is going to die in a known way, at a specific time and place, and that not only is there nothing you can do to change that, but that for the rest of your life, you will have to move around in a world that wanted this death to happen. You will have to walk past people every day who were heartened by the killing of somebody in your family--somebody who had long ago been himself murdered emotionally. You will have to live in this world and either hate it or make peace with it, because it is the only world you will have available to live in. It is the only world that is.
Again, not to diminish the pain and suffering of the victims and their families, but this particular presentation does seem to illustrate that the death penalty...the eye-for-an-eye mentality...is somewhat barbaric and somehow destructive to the men and women in our society that are directly involved in the process. Part of what makes this story so interesting is Gary waived all his rights to appeal. He wanted to die and fought his family when they tried to obtain a stay of the execution.
I should also add that this book focused less on the implications of Gary's execution and actually less on Gary and his crimes than one might expect in a retelling of his story. It focused primarily on the family unit as a whole with Mikal offering his own analysis and sharing his own journey. All in all, it worked, though whether it works for you or not may depend on your expectations going in.
April 13, 2020
Having read (and disliked) The Executioner's Song, I wanted to read the story of murderer Gary Gilmore from his youngest brother's perspective. Mikal refused to be consulted by Mailer and Schiller during the creation of the book and the 4h TV movie (with Tommy Lee Jones as Gary and Rosanne Arquette as Nathalie from 1982 which I have yet to watch), about a decade afterwards he decided to put his recollections down on paper. It is a rather depressing story of extreme violence and neglect, certainly the primary causes for the horrible turn that both Gary and Galen took. I was truly sad to read about how abused the four brothers were by their violent drifter dad, Frank Sr. It was disheartening that how religion and grift tore this family to shreds. I felt the writing was mediocre, even if the story was compelling. It does not contradict the narrative of Mailer, but enhances it with more details from Mikal's memory. I would recommend it for those who read the book, certainly, but it is not an uplifting story, unfortunately.
November 15, 2011
Chilling, disturbing, and very well-told. Executioner's Song was over a thousand pages and a wonderful book. Nevertheless, it somehow managed to tell less than half the story. I'm really glad I read this right after. Now I get it. Now I see. Gary Gilmore wasn't just some crazy man (which makes his violence that much more horrifying and sick). What he did was practically inevitable. It could have been so much worse. He is a prime example of the failure of America's prison and Capital Punishment systems. He is the result of familial break-down and bad luck and bad choices. His brother tells the heartbreaking story of his family's history and demise with passion and honesty. He worked HARD to create this book. I'm sure there are parts he misinterpreted or got wrong, but I don't think that matters here. What matters is that he captured the soul of his tale. I really felt it. Bravo.
December 21, 2019
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
This book took the dysfunctional childhoods authors suffered from in books like The Glass Castle and Educated and turned up the pain of growing up in belittling, stressful, and violent households and multiplied the degree of suffering and damage by ten.
Mikal Gilmore's parents met under less than auspicious circumstances. Two damaged people who never should have married ending up stuck in an extremely abusive marriage which produced four sons of varying damages. Two of these sons ended up suffering violent deaths and while the other two escaped with their lives, at least one of the remaining sons lived a life filled with shattered dreams, poisoned by the actions of his parents. Both of Gilmore's parents were equally to blame for the heartless killer and/or delinquents two of their sons turned out to be as well as the shell of a life Frank Jr. ended up living. Since Mikal was born so long after his three brothers, his experience of familial violence was markedly different than those of his older brothers, and for that, they resented and punished him throughout his life.
Gilmore raised the question of whether his family's fate was it all a family curse or not. Whether troubled souls and troubled homes were the result of nurture versus nature. It seems that Gilmore would argue that nurture has a bigger influence on a body. In the case of his family, I'd certainly agree. It is deeply saddening to ponder what his brothers' lives could have been like if they were raised under a roof of loving, supporting parents who wanted the best for their children and could be grownups for them.
There were a few things that bothered me about Mikal's narrative. Foremost was the fact that he didn't seem to have anything more than a passing thought to the pain that his brothers, especially Gary, inflicted on others. He covered for his brothers on multiple occasions and willingly admitted that he'd never turn his brothers in. All he could think of was how his brother's decision to force his own upcoming execution would reflect on himself and his family. I don't know about other readers but if I had a family member out in the community harming others, I certainly wouldn't cover for them.
It was so painful to see what a short straw Mikal's eldest brother, Frank, drew. Even though Mikal was the youngest, he left the total care of his mother in his eldest brother's hands, knowing this was sealing Frank's fate at ever living a normal life. Mikal, in true last child stereotype, walked away from his family and its obligations, seemingly without a care, dooming his remaining brother to ten years of blinding despair.
Besides A Child Called "It", this is one of the saddest nonfiction stories I've ever read. Normally, I wouldn't say a person's childhood is responsible for who they become as an adult but these children never really had a shot at living a normal life.
This book took the dysfunctional childhoods authors suffered from in books like The Glass Castle and Educated and turned up the pain of growing up in belittling, stressful, and violent households and multiplied the degree of suffering and damage by ten.
Mikal Gilmore's parents met under less than auspicious circumstances. Two damaged people who never should have married ending up stuck in an extremely abusive marriage which produced four sons of varying damages. Two of these sons ended up suffering violent deaths and while the other two escaped with their lives, at least one of the remaining sons lived a life filled with shattered dreams, poisoned by the actions of his parents. Both of Gilmore's parents were equally to blame for the heartless killer and/or delinquents two of their sons turned out to be as well as the shell of a life Frank Jr. ended up living. Since Mikal was born so long after his three brothers, his experience of familial violence was markedly different than those of his older brothers, and for that, they resented and punished him throughout his life.
Gilmore raised the question of whether his family's fate was it all a family curse or not. Whether troubled souls and troubled homes were the result of nurture versus nature. It seems that Gilmore would argue that nurture has a bigger influence on a body. In the case of his family, I'd certainly agree. It is deeply saddening to ponder what his brothers' lives could have been like if they were raised under a roof of loving, supporting parents who wanted the best for their children and could be grownups for them.
There were a few things that bothered me about Mikal's narrative. Foremost was the fact that he didn't seem to have anything more than a passing thought to the pain that his brothers, especially Gary, inflicted on others. He covered for his brothers on multiple occasions and willingly admitted that he'd never turn his brothers in. All he could think of was how his brother's decision to force his own upcoming execution would reflect on himself and his family. I don't know about other readers but if I had a family member out in the community harming others, I certainly wouldn't cover for them.
It was so painful to see what a short straw Mikal's eldest brother, Frank, drew. Even though Mikal was the youngest, he left the total care of his mother in his eldest brother's hands, knowing this was sealing Frank's fate at ever living a normal life. Mikal, in true last child stereotype, walked away from his family and its obligations, seemingly without a care, dooming his remaining brother to ten years of blinding despair.
Besides A Child Called "It", this is one of the saddest nonfiction stories I've ever read. Normally, I wouldn't say a person's childhood is responsible for who they become as an adult but these children never really had a shot at living a normal life.
March 20, 2012
I was a bit hesitant to read this one, mainly because I'm wary of books by authors who draw their legitimacy mainly from just being close to events that capture the public imagination. Most of us are not great writers, or even good ones and thus when a book turns up in a fashion that suggests a publisher is here to cash in on popular culture, rather than support a talent, I want little to do with it. Funnily enough now that I rave about this book to others I often see the same wariness frosting their eyes. It's a shame because this book is just plain fucking amazing. Y'know when certain people describe something as "heavy", well this book is exactly that. Its a tale by a person who is burdened by memories that are for the most part just plain awful and who, perhaps in some misguided effort to achieve some kind of catharsis through understanding, decides to chronicle his families miserable history using the solid journalistic skills at his disposal, while always accepting the fact that he is a player in the whole terrible narrative. It's a courageous, deeply felt and insightful piece of work, a book full of bad vibes and dark tragedy, and certainly worth your time.
August 14, 2019
This book contains one of my favorite sentences ever written about Mormon children: speaking of his cousins, Gilmore writes, "They seemed prissy and mean at the same time--in the way that only well-bred Mormon children can seem."
Given that I was a well-bred Mormon child--as were almost all my relatives and friends--I understood instantly what Gilmore meant. I thought long and hard about what made us all that way, and I appreciated his sharp powers of observation.
I also love Gilmore's synopsis of the Book of Mormon:
I've read this book three or four times, taught it several times to undergrads, who are invariably moved by it. It's too bad it didn't occur to Mikal Gilmore to call it something like, I don't know, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," because that's what it is. It's so good!
It's a gazillion times better than The Executioner's Song , which I just finished and which is the most boring book I have ever forced myself to finish. If you're interested in Gary Gilmore or Utah or violence or any number of things, don't read that one--read SITH.
Given that I was a well-bred Mormon child--as were almost all my relatives and friends--I understood instantly what Gilmore meant. I thought long and hard about what made us all that way, and I appreciated his sharp powers of observation.
I also love Gilmore's synopsis of the Book of Mormon:
Once you strip away all the Book of Mormon’s pretenses of scriptural import, what you have is nothing more nor less than a lusty tale of America’s favorite subject: families and murder….
Murder and ruin are written across the breadth of Joseph Smith’s pre-American panorama, and because violence always demands an explanation or a solution, the Book of Mormon’s unexamined greatest revelation is a truly startling one: As Moroni looks at the blood-reddened land around him, and as he reviews the full reach of the history that led to this mass extinction, it is plain that the force behind all these centuries of destruction is none other than God himself. It is God who brought these wandering people to an empty land, and it is God who established the legacies that could only lead to such awful obliteration. God is the hidden architect of all the killing at the heart of America’s greatest mystery novel, the angry father who demands that countless offspring pay for his rules and honor, even at the cost of generations of endless ruin.
The single strongest instance of blasphemy in the Book of Mormon occurs when a charismatic atheist and Antichrist named Korihor stands before one of God’s judges and kings and proclaims: “Ye say that this people is a guilty and a fallen people, because of the transgressions of a parent. Behold, I say that a child is not guilty of because of its parents.”
For proclaiming such outrageous words, God strikes Korihor mute, and despite Korihor’s full-hearted repentance, God will not allow him forgiveness. Korihor is left to wander among the people of the nation, begging for mercy and support, and the people take him and stamp upon him, until he dies under their feet.
I've read this book three or four times, taught it several times to undergrads, who are invariably moved by it. It's too bad it didn't occur to Mikal Gilmore to call it something like, I don't know, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," because that's what it is. It's so good!
It's a gazillion times better than The Executioner's Song , which I just finished and which is the most boring book I have ever forced myself to finish. If you're interested in Gary Gilmore or Utah or violence or any number of things, don't read that one--read SITH.
December 12, 2013
This will book always be my favorite nonfiction book,but just like Sophie's Choice it will break my heart each time,but unlike Sophie's Choice this book has real live, breathing, people who paved the road with pain, blood, and heartache. This nonfiction book reads like a novel every time I read this book I have a hard time putting it down and lose track of time. A masterpiece of the depressing,soul tearing, kind.
July 31, 2018
One of my all-time favorite memoirs. Gilmore writes with distinction, a sort of clear-eyed kindness towards self and others. Having also grown up in severe poverty and dysfunction, I related to every word of this amazing book. It's not just a story of one family—it's a story about a side to our country we too often ignore, or condemn.
August 29, 2011
If I had a “ten-best” list of memoirs, near the top would surely be Mikal Gilmore’s SHOT IN THE HEART, his searing account of growing up as Gary Gilmore’s brother. The two siblings lived parallel existences in the “blood-atonement” culture of the Mormon west, raised by two violent and abusive parents who seemed to hate not only each other, but at times, their own children. Gary Gilmore went on to gain notoriety as the first man to be executed after the reinstatement of the death penalty in this country; his brother led a life that saw him chasing darkness through music and then writing about it, most prominently for ROLLING STONE (see his recent review of Dylan's TELL-TALE SIGNS). His first collection, the 1998 NIGHT BEAT, though still less well known than the earlier memoir, which won the National Book Award, was a more-than-memorable group of essays about the noir side of rock’n’roll, and his new work, STORIES DONE: WRITINGS ON THE 1960s AND ITS DISCONTENTS (much of which appeared in the magazine) dances in the shadows that lined the rainbow-hued 1960s. No, we don’t necessarily need another book about that much-storied decade, but Gilmore’s take is new, finding “hard limits and bad faith” in the soi-disant Summer of Love, especially at its epicenter, a Haight-Ashbury which he saw full of tourists and stoned-out runaways, a danger zone where confrontations with police were merely a foreboding of worse things to come, from Tet to Altamont to the 1970 death of Jimi Hendrix.
I rarely, rarely, rarely award stars of any sort to living writers, for I don't like ranking books any more than I liked grading papers; furthermore, I religiously (so to speak) purge my bookshelves, but Gilmore's work is genuinely stellar and has a permanent place in my library. The LA Book Award and the NBCC are only two of the many well-deserved prizes it garnered.
I rarely, rarely, rarely award stars of any sort to living writers, for I don't like ranking books any more than I liked grading papers; furthermore, I religiously (so to speak) purge my bookshelves, but Gilmore's work is genuinely stellar and has a permanent place in my library. The LA Book Award and the NBCC are only two of the many well-deserved prizes it garnered.
May 4, 2016
There was a time when I was obsessed with finding a truly scary novel, something that wasn’t merely shocking, but crept under the skin and freaked me out at my core. I never found one until now. The memoir SHOT IN THE HEART by Mikal Gilmore, the younger brother of Gary Gilmore, the convicted killer who made the State of Utah carry out the death penalty it had sentenced him, reads like that gothic novel I had been searching for. There are ghosts and dark dreams, violence and bloodletting religion, magic and crime, beatings and betrayals. While Norman Mailer’s THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG tells a balanced and meticulous story about Gary Gilmore’s life after being released from prison, murdering two young Mormon men and the drama leading up to his execution by firing squad, Mikal Gilmore’s book is its worthy companion in that it unearths the demons from the family’s past, which haunted the four sons and levied a great price on all their lives. When I started reading the book its style felt melodramatic, but page after page of atrocities earned its heavy tone. There are curses that have nothing to do with supernatural forces. They arise from mundane sources and cycle through generations of victimhood where everyone loses. That Mikal Gilmore was able to walk away from this place and then return to expose it truthfully and fearlessly is the only way horror can be faced and put down.
February 18, 2008
You think you have a messed up family? Well, you probably do, but I can pretty much guarantee it's not as messed up as Mikal Gilmore's family. This book describes what it was like to grow up as the younger brother of Gary Gilmore.
This book was really good, and I think Mikal Gilmore is an awesome author. The only reason that I gave it three stars instead of four was that it was pretty heavy on the psychoanalysis of the Gilmore family dynamic. Sometimes it just got to be too much. (P.S. I ended up changing this to four stars. The book is too good for three stars.)
I know that was the purpose of this book, but at times it was just too thick and heavy. The editor was maybe just a bit too conservative. Reading this book was like trying to get drunk on Guinness. You enjoy it, it tastes great, but you can't go too fast because it's just too thick to really plow through.
This book was really good, and I think Mikal Gilmore is an awesome author. The only reason that I gave it three stars instead of four was that it was pretty heavy on the psychoanalysis of the Gilmore family dynamic. Sometimes it just got to be too much. (P.S. I ended up changing this to four stars. The book is too good for three stars.)
I know that was the purpose of this book, but at times it was just too thick and heavy. The editor was maybe just a bit too conservative. Reading this book was like trying to get drunk on Guinness. You enjoy it, it tastes great, but you can't go too fast because it's just too thick to really plow through.
April 26, 2015
I loved this book. After 450 pages I started to read The Execution's Song and at the end I read both books at the same time. Mikal's view and the view of people in Norman Mailers book.
I highly recommend both books.
My updates:
11/29/2008 page 177 29.9% "Finally a good book again. I've always wanted to read more about Gary Gilmore. Back in the punk days we used to listen to a song, called Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes"
11/29/2008 page 178 30.07% "By the other book I mean The Execution's Song by Norman Mailer. Funny I know Norman Mailer also thanks to a song back in the days. A song by Lloyd Cole Are you Ready to be Heartbroken"
11/30/2008 page 235 39.7%
12/02/2008 page 387 65.37% "this is good!"
12/04/2008 page 450 76.01% "Great. Now I stopped and started reading The other book about Gary Gilmore and then come back to this one.
I highly recommend both books.
My updates:
11/29/2008 page 177 29.9% "Finally a good book again. I've always wanted to read more about Gary Gilmore. Back in the punk days we used to listen to a song, called Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes"
11/29/2008 page 178 30.07% "By the other book I mean The Execution's Song by Norman Mailer. Funny I know Norman Mailer also thanks to a song back in the days. A song by Lloyd Cole Are you Ready to be Heartbroken"
11/30/2008 page 235 39.7%
12/02/2008 page 387 65.37% "this is good!"
12/04/2008 page 450 76.01% "Great. Now I stopped and started reading The other book about Gary Gilmore and then come back to this one.
Read
March 24, 2018Bookclub is killing me this year.
Nope. Not for me. Barely made it to chapter 3.
I will say that it may well be a brilliant book, however I never read true crime. Ever. I also felt detached from the story. I don’t enjoy this type of almost dysfunctional family porn. However if you do like harrowing stories of misery. Then please, read what you like and this may just be the book for you. It is not the book for me.
Nope. Not for me. Barely made it to chapter 3.
I will say that it may well be a brilliant book, however I never read true crime. Ever. I also felt detached from the story. I don’t enjoy this type of almost dysfunctional family porn. However if you do like harrowing stories of misery. Then please, read what you like and this may just be the book for you. It is not the book for me.
July 21, 2020
I think the disjointedness of this book knocks it down a star. I remember Gary Gillmore and the fight with Utah to move ahead with his execution as a very public and nightly thing. I also remember my father's disgust with the idea that he would be shot. I think all, or at least most of the American public was appalled and we watched for the outcome.
Mikal Gilmore is a better writer than I considered he might be, but Gilmore's life is just about what I expected and similar to many at that time. Those of us who lived more stable lives are lucky.
3 stars
Happy Reading!
Mikal Gilmore is a better writer than I considered he might be, but Gilmore's life is just about what I expected and similar to many at that time. Those of us who lived more stable lives are lucky.
3 stars
Happy Reading!
April 3, 2018
Réflexion du jour: si Norman Mailer prend la décision d'écrire sur ton frère, il y a de bonnes chances que ta famille soit un foutu bordel.
En 1979 paraît The Executioner's Song (Le chant du bourreau), un roman biographique relatant les événements qui ont mené à l'exécution de Gary Gilmore, en Utah. Gagnant du Prix Pulitzer, ce livre racontait les deux meurtres commis par Gilmore, ainsi que sa campagne pour sa propre exécution. Gilmore a été le premier homme tué après le rétablissement de la peine de mort par la Cour Suprême des États-Unis, et il a également choisi sa mort : fusillé par un peloton d'exécution.
Quinze ans plus tard, en 1994, c'est Mikal, le plus jeune frère des quatre frères Gilmore, qui prend la parole. Ayant refusé de parler à Norman Mailer à l'époque de l'emprisonnement de son frère, il admet se sentir coupable de ne pas l'avoir fait après avoir lu le livre du grand romancier et de la justesse du portrait qu'il a fait de son frère. Mikal est devenu journaliste spécialisé en musique. Il écrit pour le Rolling Stone et d'autres publications prestigieuses. Il a même écrit sur son frère lors des événements. Dans Un long silence (j'ai lu la traduction française), Mikal plonge dans l'histoire de sa famille, fait un portrait inoubliable et saisissant des personnes qui la composent, sans épargner au lecteur/à la lectrice la violence physique, verbale et psychologique qui régnait dans la dynamique familiale. Même si Mikal ne croit pas au destin et a des mots particulièrement durs à l'égard de ceux et celles qui y croient, il y a des moments douloureux de flottements existentiels dans son témoignage. Il cherche un sens à toute cette misère, à tout ce chagrin, à toute cette violence. Il relate même la fondation de l'église mormone et de son goût du sang répandu (la mère de Mikal a été élevée dans une famille mormone stricte); on sent qu'il est à la recherche de la source de tout ce gâchis.
La voix de Mikal Gilmore est honnête, directe et authentique. On a souvent le sentiment qu'il nous raconte le fruit de ses recherches assis au comptoir d'un bar enfumé, devant un verre. Mikal ne (se) cache rien. Ni son sentiment de culpabilité étouffant, ni sa colère, ni ses propres travers, ni son affection envers sa famille.
Et il y a de ces moments qui te scient les jambes par la froideur de leur désespoir. Mikal dit de ses parents: Frank Gilmore et Bessie Brown étaient deux êtres pitoyables et misérables. Je les aime, mais je dois dire ceci: c'est une tragédie qu'ils aient eu des enfants.
Le moment le plus marquant pour moi - et il faut me croire, il y en a plusieurs dans ce récit, c'est bien difficile de choisir - c'est la conversation qu'ont Mikal et Gary à quelques semaines de l'exécution de ce dernier. Mikal tente de comprendre ce qui a poussé son frère à tuer, ce qu'il cherchait à faire, où il allait avant de se faire arrêter. La réponse de Gary est tellement terrifiante que j'ai dû déposer le livre quelques instants pour réfléchir à l'implication de ses paroles. On lit comment Mikal encaisse le choc. On ravale avec lui.
Ce livre m'a profondément bouleversée, surtout en raison du ton adopté par l'auteur, qui évite de nombreux écueils associés au genre du témoignage. J'ai eu l'impression de côtoyer cette homme pendant un long moment, et je ferme le livre en l'abandonnant aux fantômes de sa famille. À suggérer aux amateurs de true crime, mais aussi à ceux et celles qui s'intéressent à l'impact de la violence et de la criminalité dans une famille. Certainement une de mes lectures les plus marquantes de cette année.
En 1979 paraît The Executioner's Song (Le chant du bourreau), un roman biographique relatant les événements qui ont mené à l'exécution de Gary Gilmore, en Utah. Gagnant du Prix Pulitzer, ce livre racontait les deux meurtres commis par Gilmore, ainsi que sa campagne pour sa propre exécution. Gilmore a été le premier homme tué après le rétablissement de la peine de mort par la Cour Suprême des États-Unis, et il a également choisi sa mort : fusillé par un peloton d'exécution.
Quinze ans plus tard, en 1994, c'est Mikal, le plus jeune frère des quatre frères Gilmore, qui prend la parole. Ayant refusé de parler à Norman Mailer à l'époque de l'emprisonnement de son frère, il admet se sentir coupable de ne pas l'avoir fait après avoir lu le livre du grand romancier et de la justesse du portrait qu'il a fait de son frère. Mikal est devenu journaliste spécialisé en musique. Il écrit pour le Rolling Stone et d'autres publications prestigieuses. Il a même écrit sur son frère lors des événements. Dans Un long silence (j'ai lu la traduction française), Mikal plonge dans l'histoire de sa famille, fait un portrait inoubliable et saisissant des personnes qui la composent, sans épargner au lecteur/à la lectrice la violence physique, verbale et psychologique qui régnait dans la dynamique familiale. Même si Mikal ne croit pas au destin et a des mots particulièrement durs à l'égard de ceux et celles qui y croient, il y a des moments douloureux de flottements existentiels dans son témoignage. Il cherche un sens à toute cette misère, à tout ce chagrin, à toute cette violence. Il relate même la fondation de l'église mormone et de son goût du sang répandu (la mère de Mikal a été élevée dans une famille mormone stricte); on sent qu'il est à la recherche de la source de tout ce gâchis.
La voix de Mikal Gilmore est honnête, directe et authentique. On a souvent le sentiment qu'il nous raconte le fruit de ses recherches assis au comptoir d'un bar enfumé, devant un verre. Mikal ne (se) cache rien. Ni son sentiment de culpabilité étouffant, ni sa colère, ni ses propres travers, ni son affection envers sa famille.
Et il y a de ces moments qui te scient les jambes par la froideur de leur désespoir. Mikal dit de ses parents: Frank Gilmore et Bessie Brown étaient deux êtres pitoyables et misérables. Je les aime, mais je dois dire ceci: c'est une tragédie qu'ils aient eu des enfants.
Le moment le plus marquant pour moi - et il faut me croire, il y en a plusieurs dans ce récit, c'est bien difficile de choisir - c'est la conversation qu'ont Mikal et Gary à quelques semaines de l'exécution de ce dernier. Mikal tente de comprendre ce qui a poussé son frère à tuer, ce qu'il cherchait à faire, où il allait avant de se faire arrêter. La réponse de Gary est tellement terrifiante que j'ai dû déposer le livre quelques instants pour réfléchir à l'implication de ses paroles. On lit comment Mikal encaisse le choc. On ravale avec lui.
Ce livre m'a profondément bouleversée, surtout en raison du ton adopté par l'auteur, qui évite de nombreux écueils associés au genre du témoignage. J'ai eu l'impression de côtoyer cette homme pendant un long moment, et je ferme le livre en l'abandonnant aux fantômes de sa famille. À suggérer aux amateurs de true crime, mais aussi à ceux et celles qui s'intéressent à l'impact de la violence et de la criminalité dans une famille. Certainement une de mes lectures les plus marquantes de cette année.
August 6, 2013
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy
When I started this book, I expected it to be a memoir of Gary Gilmore's life and death written by his brother Mikal. I was only kind of right, which is just a different way to say I was wrong. What Gilmore has done is both more difficult, and I believe more painful.
Mikal is a good writer of non-fiction. He's clear and concise without skimping on detail. He knows a lot of the details here first-hand, and has found a lot more. As a youngest child, born in 1951 when Gary was already almost 12 years old. He was too young while both were living in the family home to have really understood what his brother was up to. The family dynamic didn't help, either.
The Gilmore parents were unstable Mom was a devout Mormon who was willing to fight with, but not cross her husband. Dad was a hard drinking con artist with a lot of prison time who was almost 30 years her senior. Family life for the boys consisted of rules that could never be met, and beatings at the times they were broken. Gary and Gaylen both wandered into lives of theft that descended into death; Gaylen by natural causes. Gary descended into crime, violence, and then murder.
Lost in the wake of this destruction were Mikal and his oldest brother Frank. They survived, but are scarred. And they have now bonded in a way that they couldn't when their parents and brothers were still alive.
This is a remarkable book. It's very well written. It's harrowing, though, and would not be everyone's cup of tea. Take that into consideration prior to reading it.
Tolstoy's quote may be the best review of this book that could be offered.
When I started this book, I expected it to be a memoir of Gary Gilmore's life and death written by his brother Mikal. I was only kind of right, which is just a different way to say I was wrong. What Gilmore has done is both more difficult, and I believe more painful.
Mikal is a good writer of non-fiction. He's clear and concise without skimping on detail. He knows a lot of the details here first-hand, and has found a lot more. As a youngest child, born in 1951 when Gary was already almost 12 years old. He was too young while both were living in the family home to have really understood what his brother was up to. The family dynamic didn't help, either.
The Gilmore parents were unstable Mom was a devout Mormon who was willing to fight with, but not cross her husband. Dad was a hard drinking con artist with a lot of prison time who was almost 30 years her senior. Family life for the boys consisted of rules that could never be met, and beatings at the times they were broken. Gary and Gaylen both wandered into lives of theft that descended into death; Gaylen by natural causes. Gary descended into crime, violence, and then murder.
Lost in the wake of this destruction were Mikal and his oldest brother Frank. They survived, but are scarred. And they have now bonded in a way that they couldn't when their parents and brothers were still alive.
This is a remarkable book. It's very well written. It's harrowing, though, and would not be everyone's cup of tea. Take that into consideration prior to reading it.
Tolstoy's quote may be the best review of this book that could be offered.
March 7, 2013
Years ago, I devoured the gigantic Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer in a weekend. Gary Gilmore's story as Mailer told it was heart-wrenching and involving. I picked up Shot in the Heart to see what Mikal Gilmore could add to the story. The answer is both a lot and not much.
Mikal was the youngest of the four Gilmore boys, with a 6-year gap between him and the next-youngest, Gaylen. Mikal's memories start well after Gary's life had started down a hard path; in fact, his first memory of Gary is of a stranger being introduced as his brother (Gary had been away at a boarding school for troubled children). In some ways, Mikal lived in a different world than his brothers. Their father didn't beat Mikal, while the others were subjected to cruel treatment regularly. Mikal traveled with their father, keeping him away from his brothers and their troubles for much of his youth. He lived in a different world, but it wasn't untouched by the family's legacy of violence and chaos.
He relies on his oldest brother Frank's memory for many of the things that happened while he wasn't around, and Frank has a way with words. Both brothers are able to look back with unflinching honesty at what it was like for them, and what it may have been like for their lost brothers. This book is less about Gary Gilmore's murders and execution and more about what may have driven him to them, what demons the family had, and the mystery of how those demons affected four brothers differently. I don't know that this book alone would give you much information about Gary's case and his death without having read The Executioner's Song, but it's a powerful look at Gary's origins and surroundings if you have read the other book.
Mikal was the youngest of the four Gilmore boys, with a 6-year gap between him and the next-youngest, Gaylen. Mikal's memories start well after Gary's life had started down a hard path; in fact, his first memory of Gary is of a stranger being introduced as his brother (Gary had been away at a boarding school for troubled children). In some ways, Mikal lived in a different world than his brothers. Their father didn't beat Mikal, while the others were subjected to cruel treatment regularly. Mikal traveled with their father, keeping him away from his brothers and their troubles for much of his youth. He lived in a different world, but it wasn't untouched by the family's legacy of violence and chaos.
He relies on his oldest brother Frank's memory for many of the things that happened while he wasn't around, and Frank has a way with words. Both brothers are able to look back with unflinching honesty at what it was like for them, and what it may have been like for their lost brothers. This book is less about Gary Gilmore's murders and execution and more about what may have driven him to them, what demons the family had, and the mystery of how those demons affected four brothers differently. I don't know that this book alone would give you much information about Gary's case and his death without having read The Executioner's Song, but it's a powerful look at Gary's origins and surroundings if you have read the other book.
January 3, 2015
GAH! This book was hard to read, which I did, right on the heels of the pulitzer prize winning The Executioner's Song. And, imho, if you're going to bother reading Mailer's award winning tome, you have to read Shot in the Heart too. Focusing on the nine months between Gary Gilmore's paroled release in April 1976 and his execution in January 1977 is a story. BUT is it THE STORY? I think not.
Mikal Gilmore, Gary Gilmore's youngest brother, tells THE STORY. The Gilmore family life was horrific for it's capriciousness (they give flighty a really bad name!) and cruelty. The twine of Mormonism was like one, tied around a roast or a chicken, readying it for the oven. Seriously. I would read a few pages and stare at the ceiling, aghast! The horrors are not Sybil-like, they are pedestrian. But they are relentless, endless, committed to the effects of devastation and annihilation. Sadly, they point directly to Gary Gilmore's actions (the killing of two young men in cold blood for a few hundred dollars—total—on two consecutive nights—for the down payment on a white pick-up truck!) that precipitated his public execution by firing squad.
The whole story is perhaps proof that children really do require some level of stability. Some container for their personality to take root in: otherwise no roots... at all.
Honestly, it's Pretty Creepy Stuff .
Mikal Gilmore, Gary Gilmore's youngest brother, tells THE STORY. The Gilmore family life was horrific for it's capriciousness (they give flighty a really bad name!) and cruelty. The twine of Mormonism was like one, tied around a roast or a chicken, readying it for the oven. Seriously. I would read a few pages and stare at the ceiling, aghast! The horrors are not Sybil-like, they are pedestrian. But they are relentless, endless, committed to the effects of devastation and annihilation. Sadly, they point directly to Gary Gilmore's actions (the killing of two young men in cold blood for a few hundred dollars—total—on two consecutive nights—for the down payment on a white pick-up truck!) that precipitated his public execution by firing squad.
The whole story is perhaps proof that children really do require some level of stability. Some container for their personality to take root in: otherwise no roots... at all.
Honestly, it's Pretty Creepy Stuff .
August 28, 2007
I hate the fact that I'm forced to like this book for its message and poignancy. If it was 200 pages and stripped of Mikal's over-melancholic dramatization I would have given it 4 stars. Also this book shouldn't have been in true crime; leave that to The Executioner's Song or In Cold Blood. I'll write more on this later.
June 5, 2016
Just finished reading this memoir for the second time. I haven't read many books twice, but reading this once did not give me chance enough to really absorb the breadth of it, and I had not stopped thinking about it for years. It is a story of two brutal murders; to a greater degree it is an exploration of the importance of family and the power of family history.
February 22, 2014
fascinating family portrait. a case book of how two parents unsuited to be parents produce children who have problems.
October 21, 2022
Very interesting book about the life of a serial killer known to have wanted to be executed: Gary Gilmore. The author Frank Gilmore, the brother of the killer, tells his story.
What was interesting is that this is not a run-of-the-mill story of a serial killer (if you can call it "run-of-the-mill"). The story is actually told from the point of view of his brother. He tells the story of his childhood/adolescence and how he experienced the situation of his brother being on death row waiting for his execution date.
He also explains the different events that may have led Gary Gilmore to become what he became and why he wanted to be executed.
Anyways, this is a novel that I find rather innovative because it doesn't focus on the killer himself, but rather on the people around him and how they experienced the crimes.
I think I will remember this book for a long time as it had such a strong impact on me. It was really powerful, emotional and touching !!
I recommend it to all those who like books about historical characters (whether they are more or less significant :)
What was interesting is that this is not a run-of-the-mill story of a serial killer (if you can call it "run-of-the-mill"). The story is actually told from the point of view of his brother. He tells the story of his childhood/adolescence and how he experienced the situation of his brother being on death row waiting for his execution date.
He also explains the different events that may have led Gary Gilmore to become what he became and why he wanted to be executed.
Anyways, this is a novel that I find rather innovative because it doesn't focus on the killer himself, but rather on the people around him and how they experienced the crimes.
I think I will remember this book for a long time as it had such a strong impact on me. It was really powerful, emotional and touching !!
I recommend it to all those who like books about historical characters (whether they are more or less significant :)
August 24, 2019
grim and disturbing
January 22, 2009
There are many dysfunctional families (just slightly short of "all"), but the family described in this is dysfunctional with a capital DYS! Mikal Gilmore is the talented younger brother of Gary Gilmore, the first man executed in the United States after a ten-year U.S. moratorium on executions. Yes, Gary Gilmore was shot in the heart in 1977 in Utah, which maintained this form of execution until fairly recently so that murderers could atone for their terrible sin by shedding their own blood (hanging and lethal injection to not accomplish this merciful goal). I was initially reluctant to read this book because I could not imagine any writer adding much to Norman Mailer's magnificent, hyper-realistic, and extremely lengthy account of the Gilmore case in "The Executioner's Song," which I read when it first came out in 1979. Mailer's book is a classic (five stars in my opinion). But the focus of Mikal Gilmore's work is entirely different. It is a much more personal account and concerns itself with the terrible dynamic inside the Gilmore family, from which Mikal also suffered. "Shot in the Heart" is an attempt to search out the source of the hard cruelty that ultimately destroyed the Gilmores and led Gary Gilmore to take the lives of two young Mormons husbands in Provo. Some of that cruelty, incidentally, is traced to the hardness of the Mormon Church itself, at least as the Gilmore family experienced it through the mother, who was raised as a Mormon not far from where her son Gary would eventually commit his crimes. "Shot in the Dark" has its shocking scenes, but some disquieting things must be known about incarceration if we are to turn reform schools and prisons from breeding grounds for still more crime into places where personal change and growth can actually take place. I read this book in a single 400-page burst while flying between San Francisco and Seoul, but I remember the Gilmore case well and have continued to think about its peculiar twists and turns over the years. And as in the case of other executions at the Point of the Mountain, most particularly the 1958 hanging of Barton Kay Kirkham, who chose this option over the firing squad because it would cause the State of Utah more trouble, I could not sleep the night before the execution took place. Like Mrs. Gilmore herself, I find "scheduled killing," even of a person who has done something indisputably terrible, to be repugnant. Finally, Mikal Gilmore tells of a moment in his life when he felt he had to choose between his two adolescent loves: Mormonism and Rock'n Roll. He ultimately chose the latter and honed his writing skills as a music reviewer for Rolling Stone and then for the Los Angeles Times (he also has new book out on Rock). The skill with which this story is told makes me think he made the right decision.
November 8, 2014
I was 9 years old when Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in 1977 in Utah for the murder of two young Mormon men on consectutive nights while they worked at a service station and a motel, respectively. It was the first execution in the United States in almost 10 years. (Since then an average of 40 persons per year are executed in the US.)
If I was a aware of the murders and execution at the time I have long since forgotten. My first memory of Gilmore comes a few years later when I wrote an issue paper on capital punishment in Middle School. I became fascinated by Gilmore’s story during my research for both general and specific reasons: general, because I was wrestling with the morality of the death penalty for the first time, it’s various methods, etc.; and specific, because the murders occurred within a few miles of BYU, a school my parents had attented, and I had visited numerous times, and the execution occurred at a prison I had driven past countless times. I also felt like I “knew” the victims – young Mormon fathers, former missionaries, working nights around Provo, UT to support new families – a profile so similar to my father, uncles, and countless other relatives and friends I knew.
Fast forward a dozen years to the early 1990s and I am now going to BYU, just a few years shy in age of Gilmore’s victims. I’m also reading “The Executioner’s Song,” Norman Mailer’s 1,000+ page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Gilmore’s crime and execution when I should be doing homework. So engrosed, I‘m reading “The Executioner’s Song” during class and staying up until 4am on consecutive nights, unable to put the book down. I also make the macabre drive-by past the murder locations, and feel guilty as soon as the adrenaline wanes.
I’m also an avid Rolling Stone reader and become aware that Mikal Gilmore, the RS rock critic, is Gary’s younger brother. In 1995, just a couple years after I read “The Executioner’s Song,” Mikal publishes the National Book Award-winning “Shot in the Heart” to outstanding reviews. I make a mental note at the time to catch up with Mikal’s book later.
Fast forward one last time, 20+ years, to a little over a week ago, and I’m finally reading “A Shot in the Heart” during a business trip to Spain…
Wow, what an achievement! “Shot in the Heart” is a searing and heartbreaking family memoir, sharing more in common with some of my favorite memoirs – “Angela’s Ashes” or “This Boys Life” or “Fun Home” – than Mailer’s fine book. The difference is the intimacy: whether chilling or dispiriting, poignant or uplififting, Mikal lived this story – the scars are written on his soul, and he somehow finds a way to translate those scars into words. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this: “Shot in the Heart” is so good it made me want to buy 10 copies on Amazon and send them to my best “reader” friends. Check it out.
If I was a aware of the murders and execution at the time I have long since forgotten. My first memory of Gilmore comes a few years later when I wrote an issue paper on capital punishment in Middle School. I became fascinated by Gilmore’s story during my research for both general and specific reasons: general, because I was wrestling with the morality of the death penalty for the first time, it’s various methods, etc.; and specific, because the murders occurred within a few miles of BYU, a school my parents had attented, and I had visited numerous times, and the execution occurred at a prison I had driven past countless times. I also felt like I “knew” the victims – young Mormon fathers, former missionaries, working nights around Provo, UT to support new families – a profile so similar to my father, uncles, and countless other relatives and friends I knew.
Fast forward a dozen years to the early 1990s and I am now going to BYU, just a few years shy in age of Gilmore’s victims. I’m also reading “The Executioner’s Song,” Norman Mailer’s 1,000+ page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Gilmore’s crime and execution when I should be doing homework. So engrosed, I‘m reading “The Executioner’s Song” during class and staying up until 4am on consecutive nights, unable to put the book down. I also make the macabre drive-by past the murder locations, and feel guilty as soon as the adrenaline wanes.
I’m also an avid Rolling Stone reader and become aware that Mikal Gilmore, the RS rock critic, is Gary’s younger brother. In 1995, just a couple years after I read “The Executioner’s Song,” Mikal publishes the National Book Award-winning “Shot in the Heart” to outstanding reviews. I make a mental note at the time to catch up with Mikal’s book later.
Fast forward one last time, 20+ years, to a little over a week ago, and I’m finally reading “A Shot in the Heart” during a business trip to Spain…
Wow, what an achievement! “Shot in the Heart” is a searing and heartbreaking family memoir, sharing more in common with some of my favorite memoirs – “Angela’s Ashes” or “This Boys Life” or “Fun Home” – than Mailer’s fine book. The difference is the intimacy: whether chilling or dispiriting, poignant or uplififting, Mikal lived this story – the scars are written on his soul, and he somehow finds a way to translate those scars into words. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this: “Shot in the Heart” is so good it made me want to buy 10 copies on Amazon and send them to my best “reader” friends. Check it out.
September 6, 2016
I've approached writing this review with some hesitation -- I'm not quite sure what to say after having completed Shot in the Heart. I suppose that I should start off by saying that Gary Gilmore was put to death before I was born, and I've never read or seen The Executioner's Song, so this was a completely new topic to me. I picked the books up at a used book store because I'm a big fan of the memoir. Now that I've finished, I'm a little stunned. The life that Mikal describes as his childhood and adolescence, and especially that of his significantly older brothers, seems like a nightmarish fairy tale to me. Growing up, I never realized how lucky I was to have a stable family life, where no one drank, beat, left, or was just plain crazy. Interestingly enough, Mikal paints his father as the main culprit behind the unhinging of the family, but it occurs to me that his mother was just as bad. Overall, the book is a thoroughly depressing tale, a house of horrors that the characters just can't seem to escape. I found Mikal's writing style to be a little stilted, a little forced. An interesting memoir, but not at the top of my list. I recommend All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg and The Liars' Club by Mary Karr for anyone interested in the Southern Gothic genre.
August 19, 2023
I chose to read this book for a popsugar prompt. The topic was about a family. I can't believe that there is a more dysfunctional family than this one. What's amazing is that the youngest son, Mikal, a well-known author, turned out to be anything approaching normal. It's the story of extremely dysfunctional parents who married and brought out the worst in each other. Their most famous son was their second son, Gary Gilmore, who was sentenced to death for killing two men in cold blood on two different nights and then seemed to come home and waited to be arrested. When the government started down the long process of appeals and stays of execution he demanded to be killed by a firing squad immediately.
The book goes back through the founding of the Mormon Church on the mother's side, the Catholic Church on the father's side and even the Jehovah's Witnesses in the mix and this religious background seems to had very little influence on the children. It seems like It's a little long winded but fascinating. It is almost as if every moderating factor ended up causing the family more trauma and more dysfunction. The one thing the family seems to have gotten right was the desire to protect the youngest child, Mikal, and that was only through his childhood and was only sporadic. As I read it I kept thinking that this is what it would have been like living in the extended family of John Dillenger. Ma Barker, Pretty-Boy Floyd, Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde. Not exactly, but not out of the ballpark either.
The book goes back through the founding of the Mormon Church on the mother's side, the Catholic Church on the father's side and even the Jehovah's Witnesses in the mix and this religious background seems to had very little influence on the children. It seems like It's a little long winded but fascinating. It is almost as if every moderating factor ended up causing the family more trauma and more dysfunction. The one thing the family seems to have gotten right was the desire to protect the youngest child, Mikal, and that was only through his childhood and was only sporadic. As I read it I kept thinking that this is what it would have been like living in the extended family of John Dillenger. Ma Barker, Pretty-Boy Floyd, Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde. Not exactly, but not out of the ballpark either.
December 10, 2016
I forgot that I even had this because I had bought it so long ago. I had also forgot that I had read and used some of Mikal's writing in my thesis (or maybe I just forgot that he was Gary Gilmore's brother because I thought of him as a music writer). It was crazy to read about his memory of the day of John Lennon murder on the anniversary of the same day.
After reading Just Mercy, this was/is the perfect compliment to what I had once thought of as a much more simple topic. My dad worked with Brenda Ball's father. She was one of many of Ted Bundy's victims. He often talked about how he didn't understand how the guy was still alive since he had died of a broken heart long before his body acknowledged it. I also worked at the law firm that Chuck Goldmark was once a partner at. Chuck and his family were brutally murdered on Christmas Eve after being tortured for hours. I had always thought I was ok with the death penalty. I no longer feel that way.
My opinion of Mikal hasn't changed. He is still able to write about what or who he is passionate about and take you with him on that journey. This book is about so much that it's hard to believe he could fit it into one book but he does so in a beautiful and heartbreaking way. It's about family, religion, life, death, and most of all - love.
After reading Just Mercy, this was/is the perfect compliment to what I had once thought of as a much more simple topic. My dad worked with Brenda Ball's father. She was one of many of Ted Bundy's victims. He often talked about how he didn't understand how the guy was still alive since he had died of a broken heart long before his body acknowledged it. I also worked at the law firm that Chuck Goldmark was once a partner at. Chuck and his family were brutally murdered on Christmas Eve after being tortured for hours. I had always thought I was ok with the death penalty. I no longer feel that way.
My opinion of Mikal hasn't changed. He is still able to write about what or who he is passionate about and take you with him on that journey. This book is about so much that it's hard to believe he could fit it into one book but he does so in a beautiful and heartbreaking way. It's about family, religion, life, death, and most of all - love.
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