Norman, Where The Hell Was Your Editor???????????????

                                      I learned several things on a second reading of "The Executioner's Song," a volume at least as big as Norman Mailer's ego.  It does not sanctify Gary Gilmore, as I thought it  once did, and , after about 800 pages, I was wishing this book had been edited, because I think it would have worked just as well.  But at 1024 pages, it is just too much!

                                       It is also curiously stilted.  The early portions, detailing Gary's early life, his family, and the farm environment he grew up in, and around, was like reading Jane Smiley.  It isn't until we get into the murders, and beyond, prison specifically, that we get the macho crap Norman Mailer was always famous for.  The way he has Gilmore poeticize (or was it Norman?  I think both) graphic masturbatory fantasies is disgusting and unnecessary--except for insight into Gilmore's nature in all its aspects.

                                        Clearly, Mailer was trying to outdo Capote 's "In Cold Blood," in the true novel genre.  But, Norman, hon, length does not equal greatness.  It was the lyricism of Capote's work that humanized the book, making even the graphic phases more palpable to the reader than shoving them  in the face, as you do!

                                           But Norman Mailer is gone, so what should he care what I think?  His ego, again, is SO immense that I believe, even in the cosmos, he does care.  So I will say this--the man only wrote two books worth reading--this and "The Naked And The Dead."  The latter, his first book, is much shorter.

                                            Speaking of shorter, let me tell you my story about "Harlot's Ghost," the CIA novel  of his that came out back in 1991.

                                               I was living, by myself, in Bay Ridge, and then belonged to Book Of The Month Club.  Mailer's book was a Featured Selection, and, as I occasionally did, I forget to send the form back, saying I did not want the feature--so they sent me the book.  I looked it over; it was longer than the Gilmore book; I really believe if I had had a break in, I could have killed the intruder with this book!  I had no intention of reading it, because I cared nothing about the CIA, and I had recently read "Ancient Evenings," which came out in the Eighties, and that finished me, once and for all, with Norman Mailer.

                                                So, I boxed up the book, and sent it back.  But you know what?
They kept sending the book back to me!  By the third time, I came to the conclusion that their distribution house was so full of this book, because no one wanted it, and they were desperate to get it off their hands.  So, I finally called, and vehemently told  them never to send me "this goddamn book again!!!!!!!!!!"  And they did not!

                                                I never regretted it, and I never looked back.  Same with "The Executioner's Song."  I don't regret reading it a second time, but I don't think I will be reading it a third!

                                                 Norman, you just never knew when to put a lid on it!   The only way that problem was solved was by putting a lid on you!

                                                  I know; I can be such a bitch, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!