(Introduction)
...We started talking about The Executioner‘s Song and it became clear, from his argument, that he believed the closer he stuck to the facts of Gilmore‘s story, the more fictional it became. Then he hit on something that I think is pretty important, if one is to enter into the spirit of the book. ‘The feeling I had with The Executioner‘s Song,‘ he said, ‘was that these facts, if very closely examined and reexamined and reduced and refined, would begin to create a manifest of the give that I would call fictional. Fictional because it breathed, and there‘s the difference. If you put facts together in such a way that they truly breathe for the reader, then you‘re writing fiction.‘ - P-1
54p.
..It was seven miles and more from Vern‘s home in Provo to the shop in Lindon, seven miles along State Street with all the one-story buildings. The first morning Vern drove him there. After that, Gary left at 6 to be sure of getting to work by 8 A.M. in case he wasn‘t able to find a hitch. Once, after catching a ride right off, he came in at 6:30, an hour and a half early. Other times it was not so fast. Once, a dawn cloudburst came in off the mountains, and he had to walk in the rain. At night he would often trudge home without a ride. It was a lot of traveling to get to a shop that was hardly more than a big shed with nothing to see but trucks and heavy equipment parked all over a muddy yard. - P-1
87p.
...The twilight came down slowly. It was as if you were taking one breath and then another from a cluster of roses. The air was good as marijuana then. - P-1
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