Thursday, August 18, 2005

Where everybody knows your name

Been re-reading The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's wonderful "true life novel" about Gary Gilmore, the death-sentenced Utah murderer who demanded that the state kill him at once, no appeals. Norman's masterpiece, even though he's been smitten with other murderers since.

What I want to know is, how, in a 1024-page telling of Gilmore's story, Norman managed not to mention the famous Saturday Night Live Christmas carol, Let's Kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas. It was an instant classic. How could he have missed it?

Update: Normier (as the French call him) holds a peculiar fascination for The Drunkablog. Somebody I knew pretty well was a more-than-peripheral toady to the great man, and was full of his sayings. Once he even got Norman to sign a copy of The Armies of the Night for me. The inscription reads: "To --. Cheers."

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