RIP Norman Mailer

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Saturday November 10, 2007 15:35

by Obit [the second or third].

-The Executioner's Song-

[Due to limited time and breaking all the Obituary rules] :-

The death Of Norman Mailer has been announced:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer

and instead I want to focus on one issue about his writing and that is the Gilmore Case and the resultant book :-

'The Executioner's Song' which set a bar in documenting the issue of US capital Punishment
and also tied into the Timothy Mc Veigh Case in an interesting manner.

Norman Mailer

Gilmore was executed in 1976, he wanted and requested the death penalty . He was shot
by firing Squad and movies were made. he became a classic anti-hero , the story dominated
news media, discussion and created something almost unknown in the US. Discussion and
debate. the death penalty was re-instigated in 1976 and Gilmore was the first person executed.
Mailer built up a huge multi-layered text based on the Gilmore Story. When Mc Veigh went for
execution there was a similar crisis of conscience and questioning about the issue of the
death penalty:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

The truth of what actually happened at Oklahoma dying with him, which was parallelled
in writing by Vidal at least in his book on the issue of the bombing. other writers on the Newswire
can do this subject better Justice. The issues surrounding Domestic terrorism were never
elaborated on nor unearthed after the Mc Veigh death sentence which occurred on June the 11th 2001.

Vidal noted the parrallels between the Gilmore and Mc Veigh cases in his book on the
bombing of the building- a lot of discourse on the creation of Domestic terrorists and
deeply discontented people was lost in the aftermath of the September the 11th bombings
which provided a more manageable dialogue- internal attack and dissent, being almost
alien to the dialogue of the Bush regime, which has since that date promulgated the
neat foreign policy hook of 'If you are not with us, you are against us'.

The mainstream obits are dealing with the Pulitzer, the movies and the critique
but I remember the book (and it was nicked), it is available again and should be read
it contextualises a lot of discussion that used happen in the States before the paranoid
squad found intellectual discourse and political theory a malaise and started
jumpin on people for holding opinions that are at variance with the obvious intellectualism
and foresight that guides the Bushites (!)
RIP Norman Mailer.