Norman Mailer

[KC]

I've never been a huge Mailer fan, but still. Is it just me or does it seem that writers don't get to have critical failures, like Mailer and Vonnegut did, but still have a publisher/editor who sticks with them and develops the obvious talent. I just can't think of many writers, especially women and minority writers, who get to develop over time. One is not born a writer, one becomes one - to paraphrase.

Thanks Norman - for Naked and the Dead, Executioner's Song and many others.

[Nancy]

I think Executioner's Song is the only one I've read. He's one of those personalities that overwhelms his work and I find myself thinking about what an anti-feminist dick he was instead of actually reading his work. Didn't he strike some woman at a dinner party or something?

[Modbon]

I believe he stabbed one of his wives. He was probably a dick, a typical 50's male, as my mother would say, but he was very nice to my dad and wrote jacket blurbs for two of his novels. Those 50s guys stuck together.

Executioner's Song is the only one of Mailer's books I have read, too. Gary Gilmore's brother wrote a nice book, good companion piece.