Legacy
“[Mailer] stalked the twentieth century like a proud satyr: hideous, provocative, funny and insightful, and always true to himself,” writes Tomiwa Owolade in his insightful op-ed on the Random House brouhaha. Owolade continues: [Mailer would] probably be delighted. The brouhaha with Random House will likely make more people pick up
Legacy
More on the cancel Mailer controversy. “Mailer and the Monoculture” by Geoff Shullenberger considers “The White Negro” and its continued relevance: “The White Negro” was an early shot fired in what we now call the culture war. It set the agenda for debates that persist to this day, albeit in
Legacy
“You can’t cancel Norman Mailer.” From The New York Times: The independent press Skyhorse acquired a new book by the late writer after Random House, his longtime publisher, declined to make an offer. In the wake of a seemingly made-up controversy, the record is set straight by John Buffalo
Legacy
“Millennials hate him and he must go, but he’s not going anywhere,” writes Neal Pollack. He continues: On Monday, the first literary scandal of 2022 crashed across the bow. Donald Trump biographer and all-around media gadfly Michael Wolff reported, on the rising Substack platform The Ankler, that Random House
Family
Ron Fried interviews Barbara Wasserman, discussing her life and new memoir Love of My Life. Fried writes: At the age of 94, Barbara Mailer Wasserman, Norman Mailer’s splendid sister, has just published her first book. Her memoir, Love of My Life, is not merely an account of what it
Legacy
Norman Mailer in Context has been published by Cambridge University Press, edited by Mailer Society president Maggie McKinley. McKinley writes: Mailer fought to unearth and expose that unseen history that simmered beneath, to seek truths even amid corruption and obfuscation, to understand complicated people, to ask hard questions. He fought
Miscellany
The Norman Mailer Center is ceasing activities. Norman Mailer’s library and the contents of his writer’s study formerly in the center’s possession have been transferred to the E.S. Farley Library at Wilkes University. For further information, contact Suzanna Calev, University Archivist. suzanna.calev [at] wilkes [dot]
Family
Barbara Wasserman’s new memoir, Love of My Life, has been published. Get your copy at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Family
Barbara Wasserman’s new memoir, Love of My Life, has been published. Get your copy at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Legacy
Literary Hub has published an excerpt from Joan Didion’s 1979 review of The Executioner’s Song. I think no one but Mailer could have dared this book. The authentic Western voice, the voice heard in The Executioner’s Song, is one heard often in life but only rarely in
Legacy
Tomiwa Owolade revisits The Prisoner of Sex. He writes: The Prisoner of Sex is an odd book. Mailer refers to himself throughout in the third person. It contains literary analysis of the smutty bits in Miller and Lawrence, long and technical digressions on female anatomy, and meditations on the metaphysical
Legacy
In “A Badge of Honor,” Taki Theodoracopulos writes about Mailer and cancel culture: Mind you, to be canceled is to be recognized as very good, so my friend Norman Mailer has to be first in line. In Mailer’s novel An American Dream, the protagonist Stephen Rojack murders his wife