Norman Mailer: A Double Life
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The “glorious…sweeping, full-scale biography” of Norman Mailer, the famous novelist, journalist, and public figure: “There’s not a paragraph in this enormous book that doesn’t contain a nugget of something you…wish you had known” (The New York Times).
Norman Mailer was one of the giants of American letters, and one of the most celebrated public figures of his time. He was a novelist, journalist, biographer, and filmmaker; a provocateur and passionate observer of his times; and a husband, father, and serial philanderer.
Perhaps nothing characterized Mailer more than his ambition. He wanted not merely to be the greatest writer of his generation, but a writer great enough to be compared to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. As Michael Lennon describes, although he considered himself first and foremost a novelist, his greatest literary contribution may have been in journalism, where he used his novelistic gifts to explore the American psyche. He would return to certain subjects obsessively: John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, sex, technology, and the intricate relationship of fame and identity. Lennon captures Mailer in all his sharp complexities and shows us how he self-consciously invented and re-invented himself throughout his lifetime.
Michael Lennon knew Mailer for thirty-five years, and in this definitive biography, he had the cooperation of Mailer’s late widow, Norris Church, his ex-wives, and all of his children, as well as his sister, Barbara. He also had access to Mailer’s vast, unpublished correspondence and papers, and he interviewed dozens of people who knew Mailer. In Norman Mailer: A Double Life he “brings Mailer thoroughly alive in this great wallop of a book…and he captures the entirety of a man who embodied his era like no other” (The Washington Post).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this meticulous authorized biography, Lennon offers a comprehensive and unflinching look at the life of the controversial American novelist, journalist, and filmmaker who dissected the zeitgeist from the 1950s until his death in 2007. Lennon, a personal friend and the literary executor of Mailer's estate, had access to a trove of unpublished letters and interviews. The result, written in a measured and sometimes dry style, stresses the extremes of ugliness and compassion that defined the author's life and work. Made famous by the publication of The Naked and the Dead, Mailer had a manic energy for writing and a roving intellect, thrusting himself into the center of current events and exploring topics such as Vietnam War protests and the history of the C.I.A. The prolific Mailer was also a public celebrity who made frequent television appearances and even ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York City. Though Lennon doesn't hide Mailer's dark side his belligerent narcissism, infidelities, public drunkenness, and violence he tries to balance these flaws by emphasizing Mailer's passion for challenging received ideas, his sense of humor, and his moral seriousness as an opponent of power. While it's difficult not to find Mailer the man repugnant, Lennon's almost clinical perspective shows the author's restless innovation, which was indispensable for understanding the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century.
Customer Reviews
Norman Mailer: A Double Life
Norman Mailer transformed his life’s journey into his life’s work; he wanted to delve into the psyches of others in order to understand himself and other selves. Mailer’s writing illustrates his own evolution and shows his readers how people become who they are. In this Mailer biography, readers see and come to know through Mailer’s eyes the cast who influenced his life: Jean Malaquais, John Dos Passos, William Styron, Dan Wolf, Stan Rinehart, Lillian Hellman, James Jones, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, Marilyn Monroe, and Arthur Miller to mention a few. J. Michael Lennon guides readers on Mailer’s historical, political, religious, psychological, and sociological journey tempered with the unknown in-between exactly as life lays out everyone’s individual course. It is most certainly an insightful expedition, leaving only the question of whether or not the reader learns and grows and puts knowledge to use after Mailer and Lennon leave their literary mark. But there is no question in Mailer’s devotion to honing his writing craft, nor his revolutionary perspective he so instructively gives to readers via some of his most celebrated works such as The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner’s Song. Throughout the biography, J. Michael Lennon sculpts, inlays, and illuminates a myriad of Mailer experiences as only a devoted friend could, bestowing on readers his admiration for Mailer’s literary prowess. The process of writing is another lesson Lennon imparts to readers, and we are enlightened by his instruction as the masterful progression of Norman Mailer: A Double Life unfolds. And there is no question as to the respect and kinship these authors felt for one another.