Mikal Gilmore (born February 9, 1951 in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

) is an American writer and music journalist.

Writing career

In the 1970s Gilmore began writing music articles and criticism for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' magazine. In 1999, his ''Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock and Roll'' was published by

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...

. In July 2009, he released another book, ''Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and its Discontents''. It was published by Free Press.

Memoir

Gilmore was born to Frank and Bessie Gilmore. His brother

Gary Gilmore Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing ...

(December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

for two murders he committed in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. After the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision ''

Gregg v. Georgia ''Gregg v. Georgia'', ''Proffitt v. Florida'', ''Jurek v. Texas'', ''Woodson v. North Carolina'', and ''Roberts v. Louisiana'', 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the use ...

'', he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. In 1994, Mikal published a memoir titled ''

Shot in the Heart ''Shot in the Heart'' is a memoir written by Mikal Gilmore, then a senior contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', about his tumultuous childhood in a dysfunctional family, and his brother Gary Gilmore's eventual execution by firing squad in 197 ...

'', detailing his relationship with Gary and their often troubled family, starting with the original

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

settlers and continuing through to Gary's execution and its aftermath. ''Shot in the Heart'' received positive reviews, including a comment by ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' critic

Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...

calling the book "Remarkable, astonishing... ''Shot in the Heart'' reads like a combination of Brothers Karamazov and a series of Johnny Cash ballads... chilling, heartbreaking, and alarming." That year, ''Shot in the Heart'' won the

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ( ...

and the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

film starring

Giovanni Ribisi Antonino Giovanni Ribisi (; born December 17, 1974) is an American actor known for his starring roles in the TV series ''Sneaky Pete'' and the films ''Avatar'' (2009), '' Lost in Translation'' (2003), ''Ted'' (2012) and its sequel ''Ted 2'' (201 ...

as Mikal,

Elias Koteas Elias Koteas (; el, Ηλίας Κοτέας; born March 11, 1961) is a Canadian actor. He is known for playing Alvin "Al" Olinsky in the ''Chicago'' franchise, as well as appearing in lead and supporting roles in numerous films. He won the Cana ...

as Gary,

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...

as the brothers' father and

Lee Tergesen Lee Allen Tergesen (; born July 8, 1965) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in '' Weird Science'', as Tobias Beecher in HBO's prison drama '' Oz'', and as Evan Wright in '' Generation Kill,'' as well as guest starring in many othe ...

as Frank Gilmore, Jr. The 1977 punk rock single "

Gary Gilmore's Eyes "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" is a single by the punk rock band the Adverts. The song reached No. 18 in the UK Singles Chart in September 1977 and earned the band an appearance on ''Top of the Pops''. It was originally intended to be included on the ...

" by the band

The Adverts The Adverts were an English punk band who formed in 1976 and broke up in late 1979. They were one of the first punk bands to enjoy chart success in the United Kingdom, UK; their 1977 single "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" reached No. 18 in the UK Single ...

was used in the soundtrack of the movie. The song is written from "the point of view of a hospital patient who has received the eyes of Gary Gilmore in a transplant."

References

External links

* 1951 births Living people American music journalists American memoirists Rolling Stone people Journalists from Portland, Oregon American biographers American male biographers {{US-music-journalist-stub