Nicole Baker is Gary’s main romantic interest and a young woman shaped by abuse, instability, and early trauma. Her childhood includes sexual exploitation at the hands of Uncle Lee and exposure to violence. The book portrays Nicole as self-destructive and vulnerable to intense emotional attachments. She recalls experiences with being institutionalized for mental health episodes even before she met Gary, and has long struggled with forming healthy attachments to men. Nicole’s tragic experiences inform her sense of self. She oscillates between fierce independence and desperate dependence, craving love while fearing abandonment. Her volatility is the product of repeated harm by people close to her family. In Nicole, the book shows how the effects of trauma and abuse can linger for many years and shape the actions of an individual.

With Gary, Nicole initially believes that she has found a kind of soulmate. Unlike previous relationships, she feels a genuine emotional connection to him that is reflected in the physical intimacy. Their bond is passionate and destructive, while also being dangerously obsessive. Gary’s behavior soon turns abusive, as he both physically and emotionally abuses Nicole and behaves in increasingly controlling, possessive ways. When Nicole decides to leave him, Gary threatens to kill her and then commits the murders of Max Jensen and Bennie Bushnell, later claiming he killed the two men to avoid killing Nicole.

When Gary is imprisoned and convicted, Nicole rekindles their relationship. Gary continues to emotionally abuse Nicole, encouraging her to die by suicide so that he will not die alone. Her attempt to die by suicide nearly kills her and results in her lengthy confinement in a mental health facility afterward. Her life continues to be organized around his fate, even though, as time passes, Nicole becomes less certain that she wishes to die. She is released after his execution.

Following his death, she drifts geographically and emotionally, attempting to construct a life for herself and her children, yet even this time of convalescence involves interviews with Schiller about Gary and her past. Nicole emerges from the narrative altered, carrying both the memory of her relationship with Gary and the burden of trauma intensified by public scrutiny and loss.

In The Executioner’s Song, Larry Schiller appears as a representative of the media class, adept at negotiation, image management, and the transformation of private experience into public narrative. He pursues contracts, secures interviews, and arranges access to key figures. Despite his close association with the media, Schiller is driven by a sense of inadequacy. Since his background is in photography and media rights, he does not feel that he is respected as a writer or a journalist, suggesting that his entire involvement in the Gary Gilmore case is less about truth or justice than it is about changing the way Schiller is perceived.

His involvement in the Playboy interview and subsequent media projects demonstrates his capacity to turn his proximity to Gilmore into a professional opportunity. The book makes clear that significant sums of money are at stake. Schiller coordinates travel, negotiates rights, and protects his material from rival publications. In this sense, he profits from the execution, both financially and reputationally. However, the book does not portray him as a simple opportunist. Schiller invests time, energy, and personal risk in maintaining contact with Gilmore and later with Nicole. The book presents him as both an entrepreneur and participant, a figure who understands that narrative has value in a market economy while also slowly recognizing the moral cost of realizing that value.

Over time, Schiller develops a measure of self-awareness regarding his role in shaping the public memory of Gary Gilmore. His interactions with Nicole reveal a tension between extraction and empathy, even after Gary’s death. He genuinely fears that she will be hounded by the press following her release from the hospital, so he organizes for her to go to California to escape the media scrutiny. At the same time, this gives him an opportunity to interview her for his records. While he is showing compassion for Nicole by helping her to escape, he also pushes for disclosure, challenges her reluctance, and frames the story for publication. These actions do not erase his commercial motives, but they complicate them, just as the detailed biography of Gary’s life contextualizes rather than excuses his crimes.

Brenda Nicol is Gary’s point of reintroduction to society at large. The Executioner’s Song begins with her nostalgic memories of their shared childhood, a fond memory that reflects the book’s desire to humanize Gary Gilmore. Brenda recalls an innocent version of Gary that once existed and—Brenda hopes—may yet exist again. In this manner, Brenda becomes the orchestrator of her cousin’s rehabilitation. She invests herself in Gary, choosing to believe that people can grow and change.

Brenda’s actions demonstrate a level of optimism and social investment that is juxtaposed against the violence and cynicism that emerge later in the novel. Added to this, Brenda feels responsible for Gary. Not only is she responsible for helping her family member, but she is also responsible for his actions after he is introduced to her community. Long after she fears that she may have made a mistake, she still clings to this sense of responsibility because she still feels an affection for her cousin Gary that is built on the foundation of those same nostalgic memories that began the book.

Brenda witnesses Gary’s struggles firsthand. She sees him committing petty crimes and betraying the trust of those close to her. She does not tolerate Gary’s infractions, even if she does not abandon him. It is Brenda who calls the police following the motel murder, for example, but also Brenda who visits him in prison after he has been accused of the crimes. Just as before, Brenda feels responsible for her cousin, and she refuses to give up on him.

Even after he has been found guilty, Brenda never abandons Gary. Their relationship becomes frayed at times: She never backs down from her blunt, honest assessment of his stupidity, for example, even if she is scared of how he may react. In this way, Brenda is one of the few honest and reliable points of reference in Gary’s life. There are few people who care about him, but Brenda retains her sense of responsibility even after he has betrayed her trust many times. Though she misses the execution due to medical issues, Brenda’s enduring loyalty to her cousin and her firm sense of responsibility offer a portrait of a positive, optimistic, and perhaps naïve version of humanity, which stands in contrast to Gary.

April Baker is Nicole’s sister. In narrative terms, she provides a thematic and figurative parallel to her sister. Like Nicole, April is a survivor of sexual assault. That two such experiences occur separately hints at the prevalence of sexual violence at this time, with both sisters enduring abuse that has a longstanding effect on their mental health. Whereas Nicole’s experience influences her future relationships with men, April exhibits a different kind of trauma. She often self-medicates with narcotics, though doing so causes her to experience traumatic flashbacks to the assault that leave her in tears.

April’s traumatic experience is particularly significant given that she is the person who spends the most time with Gary on the night of one of the murders. While Gary and Nicole are separated, an under-the-influence April agrees to go out driving with Gary against her mother’s advice. Gary tries to have sex with April, who must refuse him while suffering from a bad narcotics experience and reliving of her traumatic past. When she learns that Gary killed a man on the night that they were together, April suffers immensely.

At the end of the book, April’s mother Kathryne notes that April is still haunted by memories of Gary. While Nicole may continue to love Gary after his execution, April again provides a point of contrast with her sister. Her traumatized memories of Gary obliterate any attempt to build up Gary as a romantic hero. From Nicole’s perspective, Gary was a misunderstood man who was deserving of her love. From April’s perspective, Gary was a monster who continues to haunt her long after he is dead. Once again, the similar experiences of the two sisters—their trying relationship with Gary Gilmore—provide a point of juxtaposition.