Synopsis
Undeniably one of the most controversial figures of past half century, Norman Mailer has also been one of the most influential. Twice a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, once a candidate for mayor of New York City, and the author of thirty-one books, he has both made the news and commented on it with an originality that has permanently altered America's literary landscape. From the peace rallies of the sixties that lead to The Armies of the Night, to the coverage of the "sex wars" in The Prisoner of Sex, to the study of violence and punishment in The Executioner's Song, Mailer has observed our culture with unmatched insight -- and shaped it as well.
Mary Dearborn had unprecedented access to Mailer's friends, relations, and antagonists. With photographs and correspondence never before published, her biography fills in the familiar outlines of his colorful personal life -- the wives and mistresses, the brawls and arrests—and charts Mailer's brilliant successes and notorious failures. Acclaimed for her biographies of Henry Miller and Louise Bryant, Dearborn comes to her subject uniquely sensitive to Mailer's best and worst sides. Her account is the most clearheaded and balanced evaluation to date. As splendidly told by Mary Dearborn, Mailer's story is, for good or ill, the story of our times.
Publishers Weekly
Setting a standard for lucidity and general competence that even Mailer's authorized biographer will be hard pressed to reach, Dearborn's unauthorized life tells how the writer of The Armies of the Night and The Executioner's Song "ran with his celebrity as far as he could." Dearborn, who has also written biographies of Henry Miller and Louise Bryant, recounts Mailer's early years at Harvard, his first success in his 20s with The Naked and the Dead and his rough and tumble later years as one of the keenest of the New Journalism, nonfiction novelists. There is clearly much very juicy material to be covered here, and Dearborn does it well. She is devastating in her treatment of Mailer's violent alcoholic excesses, painting an unforgettable portrait of the author on the night he stabbed his wife: one minute picking a fight with George Plimpton on the street, the next frightening the guests at his party and finally, inexplicably, almost killing her. Dearborn artfully explicates some of Mailer's more elusive texts, such as the famous passage in his essay "The White Negro" in which he apparently advocates the killing of 50-year-old shopkeepers for the sheer therapeutic effect of it. And she is careful in narrating the stories of Mailer's seemingly endless marriages and affairs. In the end, Dearborn sees her subject, now 76 and weather-beaten, as the macho man who plays by his rules--and will always do almost anything for the right price. Comfortable, finally, with his bank accounts, Mailer could defend the critical beating his book on Marilyn Monroe received in 1974 by contending, "I'm not going to sit here and bleed for the American public when the book was conceived by all in the first place as a project that would ideally make money." 38 pages of illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.