‘Don’t be proud of me. What’s there to be proud of? I’m just going to be shot to death, for something that should never have happened.’

This book tells the story of wounded lives. Norman Mailer’s blockbuster The Executioner’s Song told a story of one of the same wounded lives: in 1976, double killer Gary Gilmore captured world-wide headlines in insisting the death sentence passed on him be executed (sic). He was shot to death in Draper, Utah on January 17, 1977.

Mikal Gilmore is a Rolling Stone journalist and, most noticeably, the youngest of the Gilmore brothers – Gary, Gaylen, Frank Jr. – born to Bessie and Frank. The much older Frank laboured for most of his life under the (not unreasonable) misconception that he was the illegitimate son of escapologist Harry Houdini. The story seems only too typical of a history scared by half-truth, drink and violence – Mikal recounts tale upon tale of strife in the family home, both the rages of the father and later of the vivid excesses of the boys themselves.

In his teens Gary was an accomplished thief, had a reputation both with the local girls and for hanging out at a gay club, and was soon in and out of prison with alarming regularity; Gaylen followed, almost as though emulating a blueprint of his brother’s devising. While Gary went to gaol, was drugged on Prolixin, and became a competent artist, his womanising sibling was viciously stabbed one night in Chicago (a robbery or jealous husband, depending) and the wounds never healed. As Mikal says, his brother was murdered, but took a long time to die. In what is a surprisingly dispassionate book (florid writing only invades towards the end) Gaylen’s death is arguably the most moving episode.

Somehow the other brothers survived – Frank Jr. turned to religion, and by the end is lonely but reasonably secure. Mikal, their father’s favourite, watches his family disintegrate and die, finding no solace in unsuccessful relationships, a failed marriage, and the bottle. 

This book is littered with enough material to keep a whole practice of psychiatrists busy for years. Bessie was haunted by ghosts her entire life and vividly recalled seeing a public execution as a small child, even if Mikal effectively proves that it could not have been. The whole is scarred with religion, a twisted sense of morality (the confusion over Gary’s real father for one), and the idea that the violent circumstances of Gary’s death were what Mormons call Blood Atonement.

Gilmore is not interested in excusing the crimes, but in humanising the perpetrator. That another of the brothers went the same way, and the other two became full-fledged, if dysfunctional, members of society shows that it was indeed a choice – no matter how compelled – between good and evil. Gilmore is not here to make excuses.

This beautifully designed book is over-long, losing impetus after Gary’s death – there is some emotional force to Mikal’s tracing Frank Jr. after years apart, but his own catalogue of drinking and failing is as self-indulgent as including his dreams. The point is long made. There were, much to Mikal’s relief, no children; when a man claiming to be Gary’s illegitimate son breaks from the woodwork there is a genuine frisson. It is all too tragically clear that the bloodline continues.

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