Pulitzer Prize Fiction Winner
The Executioner's Song
by Norman Mailer
Summary
A vast nonfiction novel reconstructing the life, crimes, and 1977 Utah execution of Gary Gilmore, the first prisoner put to death in the United States after capital punishment was reinstated. Drawing on interviews and documents, Mailer adopts a stripped-down, near-anonymous prose to render the small-town textures of the American West and the legal machinery surrounding Gilmore's death. The book is a landmark in the literary treatment of true crime.
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Historical Context & Significance
A controversial choice for the Fiction category since it was based on real events; it defined the "True Crime" genre as a high-art literary form.