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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
This book was amazing. Mikal Gilmore tells the story of his family and his murderous brother Gary Gilmore. Intense, exciting and exhilerating! Definitely recommend to anyone who wants to read a book about a haunting family.
Second time I read this - the first being in college. Such a tough story - exhaustive in its exploration of a youngest son's truly, truly dysfunctional family. The second son, Gary, is put to death in Utah for killing 2 people. He is the subject of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song (another great book). While that story allowed this memoir to be written, what happens prior to Gary's infamy is far more interesting - and devastating. It reads like a primer for what relentless abuse, from one generation to the next, will do to individuals. A fair amount of this book takes place in Portland in the 60s and 70s, and as I have lived here for years it added a layer of interest for me.
This book is written by the little brother of Gary Gilmore. It's about the background and aftermath of Gary's double homicide and his execution by firing squad in the 70s. But it is the opposite of a 'true-crime' book.
This is a slow and soulful book. It's about abuse, and how parents can mutilate the minds of their children. But it's also about the shadow-side of all those good-decent families in Happy Valley, Utah. The book goes deep, without wrapping anything up into reassuring answers.
One of the most powerful features of this book is how it honors their oldest brother, Frank. Frank lives through the worst and remains decent and caring, dedicating his life to care for the family members who continue to be cruel to him. Mikal redirects some of our attention away from the spectacular evil of Gary and toward the unappreciated goodness of Frank.
Gary turned his awful history into senseless violence. Somehow Mikal Gilmore turned it into words -- words that are often beautiful and powerful. Both of them challenge my ideas of human nature, our capacity and our limits.
This is a slow and soulful book. It's about abuse, and how parents can mutilate the minds of their children. But it's also about the shadow-side of all those good-decent families in Happy Valley, Utah. The book goes deep, without wrapping anything up into reassuring answers.
One of the most powerful features of this book is how it honors their oldest brother, Frank. Frank lives through the worst and remains decent and caring, dedicating his life to care for the family members who continue to be cruel to him. Mikal redirects some of our attention away from the spectacular evil of Gary and toward the unappreciated goodness of Frank.
Gary turned his awful history into senseless violence. Somehow Mikal Gilmore turned it into words -- words that are often beautiful and powerful. Both of them challenge my ideas of human nature, our capacity and our limits.
The question that comes to me over and over again as I read this book is, “Why?” Why are we hearing these details? What is the point of this story? Why was this book written? Was this book just written in lieu of therapy, or as an exercise for therapy?
The book has a self-published feel, as if it somehow slipped through without any editing. Gilmore appears to have simply written out every single thought or detail or memory or dream he could possibly get out of his head, regardless of its importance, with the result that by the time I had finished 100 pages of the book I felt very certain that the author could have cut about 200 pages. Considering the purpose of the book (I think?) is to track the family history that resulted in his brother Gary murdering two people, I feel confident that we could have done without the history of the Mormons, or the family myth about Harry Houdini being Gary’s grandfather. And I am absolutely 100% confident that we did not need to know what song was playing when Mikal Gilmore lost his virginity.
The main content of the book is, of course, horrifying. The endless accounts of abuse and household tension and ghosts (?) both provide the main reason why the book is compelling and make it almost unbearable to read. I can’t imagine anyone “enjoying” reading this book; it is just an experience to get through. There’s two main messages I take away from this book: 1) Deeply fucked-up families produce deeply fucked-up people. 2) The criminal justice system is so focused on punishment that it ends up driving people deeper into despair, misery, and further criminality. To the book’s credit, it delivers those messages exquisitely.
And yet, something about the endless repetition of misery dulls the overall effect. I find myself skimming past episodes of their nightmarish family history, not because it’s too hard to read, but because I feel like I’ve got the picture already. Sometimes less is more, Mike.
An odd question I still have at the end of the book is, how does the author want the reader to feel about Gary? He clearly feels sorry for him to some extent, and wishes he had valued their relationship more while Gary was alive. But even considering the two main messages above, there are endless accounts of second/third/fourth/etc chances Gary received and immediately squandered for no particular reason. At some point, it seems, Gary Gilmore was just an irredeemably shitty person, and every chance he got to turn his life around just led to him hurting more people. Grim stuff! I can’t imagine that Mikal wanted me to feel this way about Gary, and yet I feel that he didn’t lead me towards any more forgiving appraisal.
Finally, and least importantly, I cannot understand how Mikal Gilmore, a man who writes about music for a living, could possibly title his memoir Shot in the Heart, when the obvious result is to make anyone who ever reads it or hears about it think of Bon Jovi’s hit “You Give Love a Bad Name”. Why?
The book has a self-published feel, as if it somehow slipped through without any editing. Gilmore appears to have simply written out every single thought or detail or memory or dream he could possibly get out of his head, regardless of its importance, with the result that by the time I had finished 100 pages of the book I felt very certain that the author could have cut about 200 pages. Considering the purpose of the book (I think?) is to track the family history that resulted in his brother Gary murdering two people, I feel confident that we could have done without the history of the Mormons, or the family myth about Harry Houdini being Gary’s grandfather. And I am absolutely 100% confident that we did not need to know what song was playing when Mikal Gilmore lost his virginity.
The main content of the book is, of course, horrifying. The endless accounts of abuse and household tension and ghosts (?) both provide the main reason why the book is compelling and make it almost unbearable to read. I can’t imagine anyone “enjoying” reading this book; it is just an experience to get through. There’s two main messages I take away from this book: 1) Deeply fucked-up families produce deeply fucked-up people. 2) The criminal justice system is so focused on punishment that it ends up driving people deeper into despair, misery, and further criminality. To the book’s credit, it delivers those messages exquisitely.
And yet, something about the endless repetition of misery dulls the overall effect. I find myself skimming past episodes of their nightmarish family history, not because it’s too hard to read, but because I feel like I’ve got the picture already. Sometimes less is more, Mike.
An odd question I still have at the end of the book is, how does the author want the reader to feel about Gary? He clearly feels sorry for him to some extent, and wishes he had valued their relationship more while Gary was alive. But even considering the two main messages above, there are endless accounts of second/third/fourth/etc chances Gary received and immediately squandered for no particular reason. At some point, it seems, Gary Gilmore was just an irredeemably shitty person, and every chance he got to turn his life around just led to him hurting more people. Grim stuff! I can’t imagine that Mikal wanted me to feel this way about Gary, and yet I feel that he didn’t lead me towards any more forgiving appraisal.
Finally, and least importantly, I cannot understand how Mikal Gilmore, a man who writes about music for a living, could possibly title his memoir Shot in the Heart, when the obvious result is to make anyone who ever reads it or hears about it think of Bon Jovi’s hit “You Give Love a Bad Name”. Why?
Conflicted in the rating - somewhere between 3 and 4. This book is well written, however it seems to fall short of what it proposes to do which is examine the life of his brother. This is by no fault of his own, but the truth is that he didn’t know his brother exceptionally well - his brother was often in jail, was a good deal older than him, and had experienced a different upbringing by his parents, who, based on all reports, he changed considerably the the time the author was born. What further complicates things is the fact that the majority of the stories are second and (more often) third hand accounts. So, while I completely respect the writing of the book, it is hard to uncouple the rating from that nagging thought in the back of your mind that this isn’t as accurate a record as he will initially have you believe. Worthwhile read nonetheless.
“And you will not have lost him to cancer or to the cruelty of another’s actions; you will have lost them to the abyss of their own soul, and you will be afraid that maybe their surrender to that abyss is, after all, the only act that makes sense.”
“You will have to live in this world and either hate it or make peace with it, because it is the only world you will have available to live in.”
“And you will not have lost him to cancer or to the cruelty of another’s actions; you will have lost them to the abyss of their own soul, and you will be afraid that maybe their surrender to that abyss is, after all, the only act that makes sense.”
“You will have to live in this world and either hate it or make peace with it, because it is the only world you will have available to live in.”
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I highly recommend this book. An excellent read, especially if you're interested in criminal and family psychology.
From my now defunct blog:
I've stayed up past midnight the past two nights finishing this book. Both nights I've gone to bed spooked, but that doesn't stop me. Considering the fact that I'm usually in bed by 10:30 or so, this is definitely saying something. I was a little girl during the 1970's, so I don't remember anything about Gary Gilmore and his story. In fact, I'd never heard his name until I read about this book, and "The Executioner's Song", the Norman Mailer book about Gary's life. I've actually had Shot in the Heart on my shelf for years, but had never gotten around to reading it. Since I'm currently on a memoir kick, I decided to give it a go. Well, all I can say is that it is a fascinating, well written, and very compelling book. Written by Mikal Gilmore, Gary's brother, it is the story of his family. It's a family full of rumors, hauntings, insinuations, abuse, mental illness, and yes, evil. But the evil in the story is not cut and dry. It is many layered evil, with some gooAd peeking through the edges. When you read this book, you are able to have empathy for Gary, yet in no way does it seek to excuse him. Gary was a product of a warped environment. Some people are able to rise above such circumstances and some aren't. We are all wired differently. All in all, it is an excellent read and I highly recommmend it. However, prepare to be haunted by it. A+
From my now defunct blog:
I've stayed up past midnight the past two nights finishing this book. Both nights I've gone to bed spooked, but that doesn't stop me. Considering the fact that I'm usually in bed by 10:30 or so, this is definitely saying something. I was a little girl during the 1970's, so I don't remember anything about Gary Gilmore and his story. In fact, I'd never heard his name until I read about this book, and "The Executioner's Song", the Norman Mailer book about Gary's life. I've actually had Shot in the Heart on my shelf for years, but had never gotten around to reading it. Since I'm currently on a memoir kick, I decided to give it a go. Well, all I can say is that it is a fascinating, well written, and very compelling book. Written by Mikal Gilmore, Gary's brother, it is the story of his family. It's a family full of rumors, hauntings, insinuations, abuse, mental illness, and yes, evil. But the evil in the story is not cut and dry. It is many layered evil, with some gooAd peeking through the edges. When you read this book, you are able to have empathy for Gary, yet in no way does it seek to excuse him. Gary was a product of a warped environment. Some people are able to rise above such circumstances and some aren't. We are all wired differently. All in all, it is an excellent read and I highly recommmend it. However, prepare to be haunted by it. A+
With such a long legacy of violence and fear, it's not shocking that Gary ended up the way he did. This book was well written in that it does not excuse or justify what he did, but it paints a picture of the tragic journey his family made to get Gary to the point of cold-blooded murder and then making the state kill him.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced