Shot in the Heart: One Family's History of Murder: One Family's History in Murder - Hardcover

Gilmore, Mikal

4.18

3,655 ratings by Goodreads

9780670843046: Shot in the Heart: One Family's History of Murder: One Family's History in Murder

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670843040 ISBN 13: 9780670843046

Publisher: Viking, 1994

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Mikal Gilmore comes from an extraordinary family, a family haunted by death, brooding on violence and fixated by its own legends. His brother was the murderer, Gary Gilmore, shot to death by a firing squad in Utah in 1977 and the subject of Norman Mailer's subsequent novel and film, "The Executioner's Song". By then his eldest brother had already died of alcoholism and stab wounds and the third brother was to disappear over the horizon, his fate unknown. It is possible that his brothers' fascination with lives of violence was inherited from his mother's fears. Bessie Gilmore believed that the family was haunted. She was taken as a child to witness a public hanging of a murderer, and the event fascinated and terrified her for the rest of her life. She believed that public killings unleashed the demons of the hanged murderers and that these demons flew from the gaping mouths of the dying men into somebody in the crowd. It was her belief that such a spirit had sprung into her. This a real-life family saga, but it is not only about violence and death. It is also the story of how one son preserved himself from his family and the emotional cost of remaining separate from them. This son is the author of the book.

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Review:

"One of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five years." -- Deidre Donahue, USA Today.

"Remarkable, astonishing... Shot in the Heart reads like a combination of Brothers Karamazov and a series of Johnny Cash ballads... chilling, heartbreaking, and alarming." -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times.

"Mesmerizing... riveting and immensely moving... Shot in the Heart is a gesture of sustained courage that just happens to be a page-turner." -- Daphne Merkin, The New Yorker.

About the Author:

MIKAL GILMORE is an American writer and music journalist. Born in Portland, Oregon to Frank and Bessie Gilmore, he is the younger brother of famed murderer Gary Gilmore who was the first person executed by firing squad after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Mikal was the music editor for the L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and for twenty years has worked on the staff of Rolling Stone, where he has profiled many national figures. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

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