Legacy
Taki, writing for the Spectator in Australia simultaneously disses the latest “hatchet job” biography of Mailer and gives reasons why we should still be reading writers like him and Hemingway. He begins with my current favorite sentence: “Norman Mailer was born on 31 January 1923, and as his 100th birthday
Legacy
An anonymous writer for The Economist asks “What should readers make of Norman Mailer’s life and work?” and attempts to supply an answer. The books resemble their author: flawed, unpredictable, grandiose and often overblown, sometimes noxious. Yet their range is remarkable. He published more than 40 and tried a
Media
With Mailer’s 100 birthday approaching, Philip Martin writes an overview of Mailer’s life and highlights recent publications, arguing: He was a technician of language whose sentences would wend like long, slow-burning fuses, exploding at the end. You could find beauty in his most boorish arguments, if you were
Legacy
In this morning’s San Antonio Express-News, Rafael Castillo pays homage to Mailer for his up-coming centenary. Castillo writes: A rabble-rouser to the end, Mailer was founder of the Village Voice and a pioneer in New Journalism who embodied all the excesses and extremes of American society. Married and divorced
Media
Today's The Ohio Star recommends The Naked and the Dead for its “timeless themes and insight into reality, in addition to being enjoyable tales in [its] own right.” They continue: Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and
Legacy
Another not-so-favorable review of Bradford’s new biography of Mailer appears today in The Guardian. Peter Conrad’s subtitle says it all: The Naked and the Dead author was a brash and infuriating personality, but he deserves better than this dismissive biography, published to mark the centenary of his birth.
Media
In today's Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks reviews the new Library of America volume Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead & Selected Letters 1945-1946. Sacks writes: That debut was sometimes criticized for its pessimism, but rereading it in this anniversary edition left me with a different impression.
Media
Today’s National Review has a dual review featuring J. Michael Lennon’s new memoir Mailer’s Last Days: New and Selected Remembrances of a Life in Literature and Richard Bradford’s new biography Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer. Of the former, reviewer Robert Dean Lurie writes: Mailer’
Legacy
In today’s The New Yorker, David Denby writes about Mailer’s experience in and around World War II, his writing of The Naked and the Dead, and his early efforts to construct his public persona. Denby writes: He left the Army in 1946 as a private, after a little
Interview
High Times has posted a classic interview with Mailer conducted by Richard Stratton in 2004, perhaps in anticipation of the upcoming publication of Lipton’s Journal in 2023. Stratton writes: I’ve smoked pot with Mailer on a number of occasions and have always been impressed with where it took
Legacy
Esquire has compiled a list of “the best books to give as gifts”: “The writers behind our 2022 Esquire Book Club selections—George Saunders, John Waters, Emily St. John Mandel, and more—divulge what to buy for every reader on your list.” Number 2 on the list is The Fight.
Media
Provincetown was a place of enchantment, light, and art. But there was a dark side to the literary life there, too. Casey Sherman writes: He loved Provincetown, but most townies did not love him back, at least not anymore. Tavern owners called him a menace, especially now during the off-