The first biography to examine Mailer's life as a twisted lens,
offering a unique insight into the history of America from the end of
World War II to the election of Barack Obama.
Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, firstly in 1969 for The Armies of
the Night and again in 1980 for The Executioner's Song, Norman
Mailer's life comes as close as is possible to being the Great American
Novel: beyond reason, inexplicable, wonderfully grotesque and addictive.
The Naked and the Dead was acclaimed not so much for its intrinsic
qualities but rather because it launched a brutally realistic sub-genre
of military fiction - Catch 22 and MASH would not exist without it.
Richard Bradford combs through Mailer's personal letters - to lovers and
editors - which appear to be a rehearsal for his career as a shifty
literary narcissist, and which shape the characters of one of the most
widely celebrated World War II novels.
Bradford strikes again with a merciless biography in which diary
entries, journal extracts and newspaper columns set the tone of this
study of a controversial figure. From friendships with contemporaries
such as James Baldwin, failed correspondences with Hemingway and the
Kennedys, to terrible - but justified - criticism of his work by William
Faulkner and Eleanor Roosevelt, this book gives a unique, snappy and
convincing perspective of Mailer's ferocious personality and writings.
