Shot in the Heart Shot in the Heart
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(Download) Shot in the Heart Shot in the Heart oGWYwE2n6 egX42QiDw 7QkyE6Hs6 PbYz364sD J8ETiTPix uqtDAscSY tI0MticSv DWIMtiNcJ tJ7Dq7ooO q4VHLcJIJ OU3iX3gWB Shot in the Heart S8sBbQB4I WX-67038 jqGmRptQo US/Data/Parenting-Relationships cB7sZuUkT 3.5/5 From 772 Reviews 7SxDfEzHQ Mikal Gilmore tQ47H7z3O DOC | *audiobook | ebooks | Download PDF | ePub eXOwLNyvW UmUZETc7l qAM3RXWMw WySmx5L4p 35BvfEE2F 0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A brother tries to understand the 2Oh7oi2fQ brutal trajectory of his brother's life.By PracAdemicThis book is an effort by the OKvHNYrNM youngest brother of Gary Gilmore to try to make sense of how two of his brothers lhSgcTHBS ended up violent (and in the case of Gary notorious) criminals, while he and a oOD0FNDJw quiet gentle older brother did not. Mikal tries to piece together his family's 6LpK45YBH history, which is particularly difficult in the case of the father who used multiple z5yjmFzeM aliases. What is not in doubt is that their father was a con man, a liar, and 3sEZfp6iJ frequently violent (especially towards Gary and his wife). His mother had rebelled from the strictures of her Mormon upbringing by taking up with him, but their marriage was right out of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. It's hard to understand why she stayed with him, but it becomes evident to Mikal at the time of her father's death that she loved him, deeply enmeshed in an unhealthy co- dependency. Mikal comes across as an insightful person and a reliable narrator of his own and his family history. The only time I really doubted him was when he said he bore no ill will or anger towards either of his parents. Given the long litany of abuse and betrayals this either seems deeply unhealthy or almost Christ-like in his capacity to forgive. Well worth reading.9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. true crime, family saga, ghost story and memoir...this has everything!By Lewis WoolstonI would presonally rate this book one of the best i've ever read, in fact i've read it about 4 times by my count, each time buying a new copy as the old copy got lent to someone and never returned which is always a good indicator of a great book in my experiance.This book starts off being about Gary Gilmore and his crimes and subsequent execution but the author delves into his horrific family history which in my opinion is what makes the book. The horrible legacy which was Gilmore's inheritance made me sympathetic to his plight although it doesn't excuse his crimes. When the author tells the story of Gary Gilmore's birth while his parents were on the run in Texas and using false names you can't help but feel the kid was doomed from the start. Interestingly because his parents gave false names Gary Gilmore had no birth certificate under his real name, as the author says "this means he would never be born, he would only die" one of the more profound and troubling quotes from the book....there are many more.The ghost story aspect was also brilliant in my opinion, i don't know if those things ever really happened and the author himself is a skeptic but they make the story into a gothic epic which haunts the reader long after putting the book down.In my opinion this is the greatest true crime book ever written but it's also one of the best family memoirs ever written and one of the best ghost stories ever written. This book will deeply affect you and stay with you for years.4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A much better understandingBy rspiveyThis is an intensely personal memoir (I almost felt voyeuristic at times) that made me feel so fortunate to have NEVER crossed paths with Gary Gilmore. The author is the brother of that infamous individual who, by his murderous ways, may have galvanized many in the United States into favoring the death penalty in 1977. Gary Gilmore was not only subjected to the death penalty, he is most infamous for actually demanding it. And demanding that the State of Utah put him to death by firing squad, no less -- a method prescribed for by Utah statute but rarely used. The author contends that Gary may have been subjecting himself to the Morman ritual of "Blood Atonement". While certainly not a practicing Morman, Gary Gilmore was surely influenced by his maternal Morman ancestors. And while "Mormon-ism" is not a direct link, the author's contention is that its influence, combined with incredible family dysfuction, finally produced a person capable of the kind of behavior that ultimately led to his own death and the death of two innocent people.Being the youngest of four brothers, Mikal Gilmore somehow was able to escape much, but not all, of his family's personal destruction. He became a writer for "Rolling Stone" magazine and has written a heart-wrenching book that amounts to a personal catharsis. I was in high school when Gary Gilmore was executed. I remember being interested then, but not enough to read Mailer's famous work about the case -- "Executioner's Song" (but I probably will now). One cannot describe this book as "enjoyable", but I'm glad to have a much better understanding now. NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE Haunting, harrowing, and profoundly affecting, Shot in the Heart exposes and explores a dark vein of American life that most of us would rather ignore. It is a book that will leave no reader unchanged. Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioner's Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a black sheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man. It was a family destroyed by a multigenerational history of child abuse, alcoholism, crime, adultery, and murder. Mikal, burdened with the guilt of being his father's favorite and the shame of being Gary's brother, gracefully and painfully relates a murder tale "from inside the house where murder is born... a house that, in some ways, [he has] never been able to leave." Shot in the Heart is the history of an American family inextricably tied up with violence, and the story of how the children of this family committed murder and murdered themselves in payment for a long lineage of ruin..