Norman Mailer
2023 is Norman Mailer’s Centennial Year. Born January 31, 1923, in Long Branch, New Jersy, Mailer packed much eventful and tempestuous living before dying November 10, 2007, age 84. Raised in Brooklyn, Mailer was precociously bright, entering Harvard at 16 and graduating at 20. He published his first short story when he was 18. He was drafted into the US Army in 1944, despite being married (the first of many) and despite trying to get a deferral by arguing that he had a great literary work underway. It turned out that his combat experience in the Pacific was, in his words, “the worst experience of my life, and also the most important.” This scuffle with destiny is characteristic of Mailer: he exasperates with his talent, his obnoxiousness, and by often being right in his egotistic self-assessment.
His novel of combat, The Naked and the Dead (1948) remains one of the most significant novels of WWII. He was, fortunately and overwhelmingly, incapable of resting on his laurels. He published over a dozen novels, short stories, many books of essays, cultural commentaries, political journalism, plays and screenplays, poetry, and opinions in all formats and forums. He collected awards right and left: two Pulitzer Prizes for fiction, a National Book Award for fiction, and a lifetime achievement National Book Award, among many others. He sought, enjoyed, and suffered a high profile in American letters. He engaged with almost all writers of 20th Century literature - friendships, rivalries, feuds, generosities, always talking and writing and getting involved, He extended influences that he felt, and he in turn shaped decades (to the present) of writers in almost all fields of endeavor.
Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery
Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery
In perhaps his most important literary feat, Norman Mailer fashions an unprecedented portrait of one of the great villains—and enigmas—in United States history. Here is Lee Harvey Oswald—his family background, troubled marriage, controversial journey to Russia, and return to an “America [waiting] for him like an angry relative whose eyes glare in the heat.” Based on KGB and FBI transcripts, government reports, letters and diaries, and Mailer’s own international research, this is an epic account of a man whose cunning, duplicity, and self-invention were both at home in and at odds with the country he forever altered.
Praise for Oswald’s Tale
“America’s largest mystery has found its greatest interpreter.”—The Washington Post Book World
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance. . . . From the American master conjurer of dark and swirling purpose, a moving reflection.”—Robert Stone, The New York Review of Books
“A narrative of tremendous energy and panache; the author at the top of his form.”—Christopher Hitchens, Financial Times
“The performance of an author relishing the force and reach of his own acuity.”—Martin Amis, The Sunday Times (London)
Praise for Norman Mailer
“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times
“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker
“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post
“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books
“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune
“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post