I have been rereading Shot in the Heart, the story of Gary Gilmore, the last man executed by firing squad in 1977. As if being executioned by firing squad is not enough, his last words were “Let’s do it.” I do recommend the reading of this book and I give it 4 of 5 stars.
I read this book over 20 years ago and I’m practically a new person since then, maybe even having been a second or third new person since then. I’ve lived with decades of hurt and deceit coming from my extended family and that is instrumental in my changes and adaptations.
I see this book a bit differently now, after having written about my own abusive childhood. I’m sure that I still have some opinions that are the same, such as seeing how much his younger sibling Michael was favored over Gary, much like myself and my younger brother.
Gary was frightfully abused by his father, Frank and ignored by his mother, while Michael was adored. Sound familiar? Gary went on a self destructive path, taking his anger, of being abused, out on anyone near him.
This book is one of those books that feels odd admitting you like reading it, because it’s about a young man being destroyed by his father and then he goes about destroying any semblance of a normal life. The internal conflict was not fully delved into by the younger brother who wrote this book. The fall of this tortured soul may never be fully known because Michael has no way of knowing the workings of Gary’s angst. It’s impossible to not compare my upbringing to another’s who suffers from emotional, physical, and mental abuse, because that’s crucial to me in the dissecting of this book. The beatings Gary lives through as his mother mutely stands by feels like I’m looking into my own past. Gary was treated unfairly and yet, he actually supported his mother in her final years.
It’s curious, because lives can be destroyed in similar methods, and yet it is the life after those abuses that truly defines a person. Some can’t escape childhood dysfunctional abuse and others find themselves soaring away in the best way possible.
I’d love to have known Gary’s actual thoughts about the life he endured, but that’s probably because I’d like to compare those thoughts to my own life. Gary does not find redemption outside of being imprisoned for murdering two people. It is is his execution that he fully realizes his redemption, because he does not fight it. He welcomes his ending. He desires a clean slate by being found guilty of murder and the bullet ending his life is simply the accumulation of all of his transgressions. I believe he found peace in the ending of his life and that is desperately sad. It's only when his life ends does he allow himself to face the fact that he will will never be able to stop the trajectory of his physical abuse at the hands of his father. He was unable to get out of the abusive cycle.
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