The Executioner's Song

One man’s death wish became America’s obsession.

In 1976, Gary Gilmore murdered two men - then demanded to die for it. His trial and televised execution became a media spectacle, and ensured that his execution turned into the most gruesome media event of the decade.

Mailer’s Pulitzer-winning epic combines journalistic detail with novelistic intensity. The Executioner’s Song is not just a chronicle of crime, but a haunting portrait of a country addicted to retribution.