Description THE LAST WORD must be categorized as a work of fiction. While Chester Gillette was a real person, in the book’s creation I fabricated characters and dialogue for two main reasons: First and foremost, I chose to write the book as an autobiography by Chester himself, and it would be impossible for me to know all the precise words that he spoke or all the people that shared in his life, especially outside of the public’s eye. Nevertheless, I have made every effort to make this book the most accurate and up-to-date record of Chester’s life. I have researched thousands of pages of old newspaper copy from libraries and online, read several books on his life, downloaded and dissected 3,000 pages of his trial transcript from the New York Court of Appeals, and absorbed all the nuances of Chester’s personality that shine through from his recently discovered prison diary and personal letters. There is a mere handful of characters in the text that are fictional. All of the vignettes that showcase Chester’s character include real localities and situations suggested by research. Due to the overwhelming press coverage, the passages regarding Chester’s trial and imprisonment are the most historically accurate in the book. Many of the trial sequences are written in the format of a play with the dialogue of the principals taken directly from the court transcript. I contrived to write the book from the point of view of Chester Gillette, exploiting the words and experiences available to his mind and the forces of his imprisonment that may have influenced the way he fashioned them into a story. There can be no better way to illuminate a person’s life.
