** spoiler alert ** One of my biggest failings as an otherwise liberal-leaning guy is that I'm not adamently anti death penalty. What can I say? Sure, the justice system is a bit screwey and unforgiving, and quasi-racist. But beyond the social factors, some criminals are simply vicious, hurtful, hateful bastards with violent tendancies no remorse, and IMHO, ain't nothing wrong with settling the score, cleaning the slate, tabula rasa or whatever.
So reading Norman Mailer's 1979 tome on the first state-sponsored execution carried out in the United States since the Supreme Court places a moratorium on the practice, in a book club with a bunch of NPR-listening, Slate-reading intellectuals who wouldn't even consider the possibility that capital punishment might, sometimes, in extreme instances, occaisonally be warranted - much less the idea that it should remain a fixture in our justice system - yeah, that can be pretty intense.
I'd like to hope that everybody in the group at least somewhat had their convictions challenged as much as I did.
Mailer cleverly divides the book into two halves: "Western Voices" focuses on the story of Gary Gilmore, a Colorado ex-con, his parole from prison, his alcoholism and petty theft leanings and sexual perversions, but also a side that was insanely intelligent, perceptive, sensitive and madly in love with Nicole Baker. (The Nancy to his Sid, if you will.) Mailer does not at all play down his central character's abusive, criminal, murderous failings. But the author gives as round of a picture as he possibly can (a taxing task, considering that Mailer did not pull from sources other than actual interviews for this novel, hellbent on making it "a true fiction" or whatever), in the end making us really sympathize and feel for this murderous guy, even if we don't really understand him and, nonetheless, want him to die.
Move onward to part two, "Eastern Voices," the point where the media from New York and Los Angeles and special interest causes like the NAACP and the ACLU rally to Gilmore's cause, insisting that he should not be put to death even though he accepts the guilty verdict and has no wishes to appeal. This segment of the book adds fuel to the fire of those who have leanings against mainstream broadcast media and activist cause opportunists, and I spent a lot of the section feeliing that the filmmakers and activists were all wrong, further that they were being offensively insistent in their wrongness, that Gilmore should just be allowed to accept his sentence if that's what he wanted. Mailer obviously wanted this reaction out of his readers, so he could then twist the knife in a totally different direction in an extremely detailed and graphic description of Gilmore's execution and autopsy, making even my moderate self murmur "Hmm, this is kind of barbaric."
This hasn't even scratched the surface of the depths this book gets to...which, really, are the depths that only a 1,056 page book can. But don't let the page count deter you, as it is an engrossing read, and highly impressive in that it will make you question your outlook, whatever side of the fence you fall on.