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Shot in the Heart

4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 · rating details · 1,170 ratings · 129 reviews

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 fathe...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published August 1st 1995 by Anchor (first published 1994)

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Jul 28, 2011 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the sweet smell of success

Recommended to Mariel by: my knuckle sandwiches say love and death

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 Ex...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Andy rated it 4 of 5 stars

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...more

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Jun 15, 2007 Heather rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: death-penalty

Gary Gilmore was the first person executed in the U.S. (Utah) after the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 (this book was written by Gilmore's brother). While this was an interesting read about Gilmore's life, throughout the book it was reiterated that the Mormon religion was somewhat to blame for Gilmore's outcome. Now, I'll be the first to say that I don't know much about the Mormon religion (I've been exposed to and have read about it, but that's the extent of my involvement), but the...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Ursula rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-autobiography, nonfiction, crime

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...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 (hang...more 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.(less)

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Oct 29, 2012 R rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, escape, memoir, penal

This is an intensely personal memoir (I almost felt voyeuristic at times) that made me feel so fortunate to have NEVER crossed paths with Gary Gilmore. The author is the brother of that infamous individual who, by his murderous ways, may have galvanized many in the United States into favoring the death penalty in 1977. Gary Gilmore was not only subjected to the death penalty, he is most infamous for actually demanding it. And demanding that the State of Utah put him to death by firing squad, no...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Zarb rated it 5 of 5 stars

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...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Karo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: manfic, memoir

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 an...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Diann Blakely rated it 5 of 5 stars

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...more

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Apr 19, 2009 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was such an interesting look at the family life of Gary Gilmore as told by his brother, Mikal. His look into what may have made Gary do the things he did was so honest, well researched and well written that I had a hard time putting it down. One thing that does disturb me, though, is that it seems that this book and society as a whole try to justify a person's actions based on others, rather than accepting personal responsibility for their own choices. It really made me think.

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May 11, 2010 Talulah Mankiller rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In the mid-1970s, Mikal’s brother Gary murdered two young Mormon men without provocation and was sentenced to death; he accepted the conviction, refused to appeal, and was executed by firing squad. As Mikal tells it, this was merely the latest in a long string of disasters for the Gilmore family: another brother, Gaylen, had died a few years before of stomach wounds sustained in a knife fight, and their father had died of cancer several years before that. Moreover, their father was a middle-aged...more In the mid-1970s, Mikal’s brother Gary murdered two young Mormon men without provocation and was sentenced to death; he accepted the conviction, refused to appeal, and was executed by firing squad. As Mikal tells it, this was merely the latest in a long string of disasters for the Gilmore family: another brother, Gaylen, had died a few years before of stomach wounds sustained in a knife fight, and their father had died of cancer several years before that. Moreover, their father was a middle-aged conman when he met and married their mother; within a few months of having their first child together (Gilmore Sr. had children from other relationships stashed all over the country), Bessie and Frank were bouncing from town to town, always one step ahead of Frank’s most recent scam. At one point when Frank was feeling exceptionally paranoid, he actually left Bessie and their oldest at a gas station in the middle of nowhere; he drove off in the car with infant Gary, who was committed to an orphanage when his dad left him on a park bench to go scam someone.

God knows why, but the Gilmores actually managed to get custody of that kid again.

Oh, and Frank beat the crap out of all the kids except for Mikal. He would beat them regardless of whether they were “guilty” of a perceived infraction or not; at one point, he beat both Gary and the oldest son, Frank Jr., for a minor “crime.” Gary was actually the guilty party, and after the beating, Frank Jr. asked his dad if it would have mattered if he’d told on his brother. “No,” his father said. “No one likes a squealer.”

Bessie wasn’t exactly a prize, either: when Frank Sr. finally settled into a well-deserved prison sentence, she took the two oldest boys back to her parents’ place in Utah to wait out his time. She beat the crap out of her two toddlers so often and so viciously that even back in the 1940s in fundamentalist Mormon Utah, her relatives were appalled. They told her that if she didn’t shape up, they’d take the kids from her; her response was to flee in the night and keep on smacking. Later in life, however, both Bessie and Frank Sr. thwarted every attempt on the part of “the law” to punish or rehabilitate their two most wayward children, Gary and Gaylen. They hired fancy lawyers, swore up and down that “their boys” weren’t involved in everything from grand theft auto to statutory rape, made sure the Gilmore sons got the lightest punishment possible, and then…turned around and repeated the cycle of screaming, beating, and general abuse when the boys came home. Their basic attitude seemed to be “I can kick the crap out of you, but no one else can!”

To be perfectly blunt, I’m surprised that all four kids didn’t end up on death row with an upbringing like that. They grew up in a world without any rules that made sense, where you were basically an object to be abused or protected according to the whims of two people who hated each other and everyone around them. I don’t excuse or condone what Gary Gilmore did, but I can definitely understand how he came to a point where nothing anyone did or said could extinguish the rage he felt. In a way, it makes sense that his crimes were against random people he’d never even met: he’d been subjected to random acts of violence since he was practically a baby. How could he even conceive of a crime that had a specific target?

As for the book itself–it’s pretty good, but I happen to think that some of Mikal’s interpretations of his brother’s later behavior are a little spurious. Mikal focuses very strongly on Gary’s decision to be executed via firing squad and links it to the Mormon doctrine of Blood Atonement: basically, some crimes are so bad that the only way to be forgiven is to die while your blood is literally being shed. Now, Bessie Gilmore was a Mormon, but Gary wasn’t raised in the church; he spent some time with his Mormon relatives as a child and was later released to their charge as an adult (something they regretted when he went out and shot two people while staying with them), but Mikal never presents any evidence that Gary became a Mormon or held any of their beliefs. Mikal’s very big on inheritance and the legacy of past violence, and since Bessie’s family was descended from some of the earliest Mormon pioneers, maybe he thinks that the whole Blood Atonement thing was predestined or something? I don’t know. It didn’t make much sense to me as a reader. I can see the parallel, and I agree that it’s interesting, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Gary knew anything about it–so I can’t understand spending so much of the book talking about it.

Recommended for: If you like reading about murder in a non-sensationalized way, this is probably for you.(less)

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May 22, 2012 E rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, memoir-bio

When I was packing in anticipation of heading off to do my fieldwork I asked Miriam to select a few books for me to take along. She picked Shot in the Heart, which she's been after me to read for at least a year, and Lolita, one of her favourites and definitely the one she most loves to teach. It didn't occur to either of us that perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea to bring these two dark, disturbing books to serve as distractions from the unyielding cacophony that is Caracas, and indeed, spendi...more

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May 20, 2009 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Katie by: Dad

I was on my way to Panera to have some lunch and read, when a man stopped me and could not believe I was reading this book. He told me that anyone writing about Gary Gilmore's life and execution was just looking for money and that the story couldn't possibly be accurate.

Ok.. FIRST: Mikal is a professional writer. He has an obvious talent and clearly uses writing as a release.

SECOND: Wow, this poor, poor family.

I read Shot In the Heart right after finishing The Exectioner's Song By Norman Mailer....more

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Jan 18, 2013 Nate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, mojo, memoir, modern-non-fiction

I can't do justice to this heart-breaking, haunted and powerful book. Gilmore's family was consumed by evil, literally cursed, but also bright and talented. Gilmore was fortunate to escape the worst of it and we're all fortunate he was so able to tell the tale.

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Oct 03, 2012 Tim Healy rated it 4 of 5 stars

"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...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Erik Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Throughout this book, I kept wondering how Gary Gilmore was the only one in his family who turned out to be a murderer. Seriously: awful parenting 101.

For those who want the story of Gary's murders, as well as the famous subsequent trial, read EXECUTIONER'S SONG, the only book Mailer wrote that was worth a damn. But if you want to know what happened in Gilmore's family in the sixty years preceding his murders, as well as the ten or so years following his execution, read this. Truly extraordinar...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Kate

Recommended to Rebecca by: Powell's

Fairly gripping family history of Gary Gilmore, the first man executed in the U.S. after the moratorium on executions was lifted in the 70s. Gilmore's youngest brother, who lived in Portland most of his life before moving to SF and LA to write for Rolling Stone, writes of a past marked by abuse, violence, family myths and secrets and ghost stories. Gilmore killed and was executed in Utah. His mother was a Mormon and his father a drifter and con-man. Gives interesting account of some history and...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Denise Gee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Though I'm a little behind the beat in getting to this, I'm so glad I did. It's one of the best-written family memoirs I've yet to read. Gilmore is one of our generation's most knowledgeable music/pop culture writers (and I'm reading another of his books next) but many may not know that his brother was Gary Gilmore, focus of "The Executioner's Song" and the first person to die in this country after capital punishment was reinstated. Gilmore's writing — and story —is achingly memorable. Haunting,...more

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Nov 12, 2009 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars

I felt a lot about this like I did about the movie "Dead Man Walking" - at the end I still wanted the condemned man to die and thus was happy with the ending. Granted, Gary Gilmore had a horrible life, but he also had 3 other brothers who had the same horrible life and didn't kill people for the fun of it. I know Mikal Gilmore is very anti-death penalty and was trying to make you feel sympathy for his brother, which I did to some degree, but not enough. What I did find fascinating and almost amu...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Powells.com rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mikal Gilmore's family history is a ghost that lingers long after you close the cover. His brother Gary's infamous choice to pay an eye for an eye after murdering two young Mormon men was the grain of sand in the oyster that is Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song. The story is about the entire family (four boys, their sad mother, their abusive father) and is sweet and horrific at the same time. A look at Portland, Oregon, in the 1950s and a history of blood-letting complete this intriguing and ve...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Stuart Chandler rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book. Mikal Gilmore was a writer for Rolling Stone when I read this. He writes the story about his brother, Gary Gilmore, who died of firing squad in the death penalty for murders he committed in Utah in the 70's. Because they were brothers, Mikal's account is extremely personal and insightful sharing the interesting and sad relationship with their parents...especially dad. It was an outstanding read if you enjoy stories about the human condition, even at its darkest moments....more

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Feb 26, 2009 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mikal Gilmore manages to pull off the most honest story-telling he can possibly generate of his life in the Gilmore family. The first three-fourths of the account were, by far, the most engaging as he unveils many of the ghosts that haunted the lives of his parents and brothers. But he poses an interesting question: how much can we ever know of the people we love the most? How much information would we want to know?

The last quarter of the book was the weakest as Gilmore seems to struggle with a...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Jean Krieg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Captivating and troubling, I kept on wishing I could get by on fewer hours of sleep than I do since I tended to read it before I went to bed. And then sometimes I had nightmares. This book was very well written, descriptive, poignant and came from the heart. I got the sense that writing the book was a journey for the author. An example of a sentence I thought was constructed well: "It (depression) makes you look on the rest of the world with a bit more compassion, and it also causes you to watch...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Valeriane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, partenariat

http://livresetval.blogspot.com/2012/...

Reçu dans le cadre de l'opération Masse critique de Babélio (que je remercie au passage, ainsi que les éditions Points), j'avais envie de découvrir ce livre depuis un bout de temps. Ce récit s'inscrit dans la droite ligne du "Chant du bourreau" de Norman Mailer, que j'avais vraiment apprécié.
Pour rappel, Le chant du bourreau relate l'histoire de Gary Gilmore, petite frappe, condamné à la peine capitale dans les années 70 pour le meurtre de deux jeunes homm...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This memoir is only partly about Gary Gilmore, the author's older brother, who was executed in 1977 for a notorious double murder in Utah. In fact, Mikal Gilmore states that he deliberately tried to avoid covering the same ground covered by the 1979 Norman Mailer/Lawrence Schiller collaboration, The Executioner's Song. Instead, Shot in the Heart explores what it was like growing up in the abusive Gilmore family, where the father, Frank Sr., routinely beat his wife and sons, went on long and some...more

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Apr 22, 2009 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Before reading this, "Gary Gilmore" was just a name that was vaguely connected to an execution in Utah and one of Norman Mailer's novels. Before reading this, I had no idea that people were given the choice of a firing squad at their execution (I may have heard it, but probably never took it very seriously, if I ever thought about it at all). Before reading this, I never really thought much about the notion of suicide by execution.

Everything changed after I read this book. Mikal (who legally cha...more Before reading this, "Gary Gilmore" was just a name that was vaguely connected to an execution in Utah and one of Norman Mailer's novels. Before reading this, I had no idea that people were given the choice of a firing squad at their execution (I may have heard it, but probably never took it very seriously, if I ever thought about it at all). Before reading this, I never really thought much about the notion of suicide by execution.

Everything changed after I read this book. Mikal (who legally changed his name when he got old enough...I had to point that out because his name bothered me throughout most of this book) makes a point of laying out everything he knew about his family: his mother's upbringing, his father's demons, and the preferential treatment he received for being his father's favorite. He gives some insight as to what Gary was like growing up, what he had to deal with, what he put the family through, and how it affected each of them.

As the reader, you're not surprised to find that Mikal was ashamed of being "Gary's brother". You know he suffers his part in the family, and you cringe when you see Mikal try to reach out to Gary, to try to stop the out-of-control train that is Gary's life. You know it's no use, you know that Gary can't be saved, and yet you're disappointed when Gary lets the entire family down again and again.

I liked this story for the honesty. I actually read this, and then picked up The Executioner's Song. There were a couple small inconsistencies between what Mikal reported and what Mr. Mailer wrote, especially at the end of Gary's life, and I was more than a little surprised at how it seemed Mr. Mailer's novel almost romanticized Gary's life.

Maybe because I read this book first, or maybe because it was written by Gary's little brother, or maybe because this book is infinitely shorter than Mailer's epic; whatever the reason, I found I this story drew me in the most.

There's a small passage towards the end of the book, after Gary's execution, that stuck with me. Mikal is discussing the state of Gary's shirt, which was returned to the family afterwards, and they notice that there are five bullet holes instead of four. Mikal's words at that moment, when a little outrage would have been understandable, were instead resigned, slightly disbelieving and a little sad, which probably best sums up his telling of the brother he knew, the man the country hated, and boy his parents raised.(less)

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Aug 09, 2008 Glenn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing account of a fascinating and tragic family and its history & dynamics. Everything is amazing: the content, the writing, the research, the honesty and courage of the writer, the lack of sentimentality, and the full and vivid picture he creates of the family members, their relationships, their humanity and their pain.

The family includes Gary Gilmore, who in the late 70's was found guilty of double murder, and executed by firing squad. The author is his youngest brother. But the book i...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, nonfiction, pacific-nw, thriller-mystery

Second time I read this - the first being in college. Such a tough story - exhaustive in its exploration of a youngest son's truly, truly dysfunctional family. The second son, Gary, is put to death in Utah for killing 2 people. He is the subject of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song (another great book). While that story allowed this memoir to be written, what happens prior to Gary's infamy is far more interesting - and devastating. It reads like a primer for what relentless abuse, from one...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Mia rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is eerily amazing how a book can be about the true horrors of life - abuse, neglect, discomfort, unhappiness, and even murder - and yet to thoroughly captivating. I cannot imagine what Mikal Gilmore has gone through, even though I vividly relived many of his darkest family moments alongside him. It was an eye-opener about the reality of being RELATED to someone with a dark side... the legacy that you never asked for and can never avoid. Truly heartbreaking.

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Nov 15, 2011 Nnedi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 s...more

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About Mikal Gilmore

Mikal 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 fir...more

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