The Executioner's Song (1979) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events related to the execution of Gary Gilmore for murder by the state of Utah.

Notable for its portrayal of Gilmore and the anguish generated by the murders he committed, the book was central to the national debate over the revival of capital punishment by the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).

Gilmore would be the first person to be executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 following a moratorium of more than four years initiated by the decision in Furman v. Georgia.

Despite his efforts to reform himself, Gilmore had a pattern of emotional volatility and self-destructive behavior, resulting in fighting, stealing, and using drugs.

The first section of the book deals with Gilmore's early life, his numerous detentions in juvenile crime facilities, and later, prison.

The second section focuses more extensively on Gilmore's trial, including his refusal to appeal his death sentence, his dealings with Lawrence Schiller, and his attorneys' continued fight on his behalf.

"[8] In a review for The Times Literary Supplement, David Lodge writes that "The Executioner's Song demonstrates the undiminished power of empirical narrative to move, instruct, and delight, to provoke pity and fear, and to extend our human understanding.

Charles Nicholl complained in The Daily Telegraph that Mailer perhaps overestimated the charisma of his subject, and "is often guilty of spurious[ly] overloading .

[10] Alice R. Kaminsky, an English professor at the State University of New York at Cortland and mother of a son who was murdered at age 22, took Mailer to task for portraying Gilmore as a victim.

[11] Mailer adapted a screenplay from the book for the eponymous 1982 television movie, which stars Tommy Lee Jones (who won an Emmy for the role), Eli Wallach, Pat Corley, Christine Lahti, and Rosanna Arquette, and was directed by Lawrence Schiller.