"In Cold Blood" and "Executioner's Song", what was Mailer thinking ?

[hedgehog]

I just finished reading in Cold Blood after seeing the movie Capote and then I caught a reference to Executioner's Song. Was Mailer trying to secure his title as greatest American writer by picking a subject so close to Capote's? It seems so bound to the entire New York Literati scene of the 50's and 60's. There has been such an explosion of good writers especially "regional" writers that the entire greatest American writer and Great American Novel thing seems passe.

I realize that these books may fall into the non-fiction category, but both writers seem to fall into the fiction category.

[Jim__]

1. I don't know what Mailer was thinking, but "Executioner's Song" was a great book.

When Mailer wrote that, the execution of Gary Gilmore was all over the news. The book details how prison turns Gilmore from a car thief to a homicidal maniac. And, while the reader's sympathy is definitely with the people that Gilmore kills, you also come to some understanding of Gilmore.

There is a scene in the book where a lawyer who is fighting for Gilmore's life (against Gilmore's wishes) gives a press conference on the steps of the court house. He gives the clearest explanation for the high rate of recidivism in the US prison system that I have ever seen.

I doubt that Mailer wrote this to compete with Capote, or to claim a special place in the American literary scene. The book stands on its own merits.

[qwertyMike]

2. Mailer wasn't 'thinking'

He was a drunk.
But then again Joyce, Steinbeck, Poe, Capote, Hemmingway, Churchill (Nobel) etc