Norman Mailer

What would Norman Mailer have made of Clint Eastwood ? I've been thinking about that these last few days, as we shift from one national nominating convention to another, as Tampa yields to Charlotte and the great miniseries of presidential politics continues its inexorable passage toward Election Day. Mailer , after all, is the big daddy of participatory political reporting, spiritual godfather of Hunter Thompson, Timothy Crouse and Matt...

It's tough to imagine a less likely inheritor of Norman Mailer's mantle as political observer than David Foster Wallace; Mailer, after all, was one of the writers Wallace derided as “Great Male Narcissists” in the New York Observer 15 years ago. Yet throughout Wallace's “McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope” - campaign reportage originally written...

In 1969, 600 million people -- one-fifth of the world's population -- watched the live television broadcast of the moonwalk. Leading art book publisher Taschen has not let the 40th anniversary go unheralded; its book " Norman Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11" is available in a limited edition of 1,969 copies. The book, which combines archival photos with text from Norman Mailer's 1970 book, "Of a Fire on the Moon," comes in a white resin case with a plexiglass porthole window and includes a poster signed by Buzz Aldrin (Taschen: 350 pp., limited edition, $1,500 and up)

What would Norman Mailer have made of Clint Eastwood ? I've been thinking about that these last few days, as we shift from one national nominating convention to another, as Tampa yields to Charlotte and the great miniseries of presidential politics continues its inexorable passage toward Election Day. Mailer , after all, is the big daddy of participatory political reporting, spiritual godfather of Hunter Thompson, Timothy Crouse and Matt...

The voice explains a lot. You think, how could any woman live with the famously moody writer Norman Mailer for 33 years, and then you hear Norris Church Mailer's soft, authoritative, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice, with its 61-year-old Arkansas twang still intact, and you have a revelation about men and women. It is important to remember that "A Ticket to the Circus" (Random House: 432 pp., $26) is Norris's own memoir, not Norman's -- not even Mrs. Mailer's. It is the story of a girl, born in Arkansas in 1949, who came of age in the 1960s and struggled to find her way of contributing to the world, which was still a man's world.

Some folks get crochety as they age, but Norman Mailer may be getting more polite. At a weekend event in Provincetown billed as a "literary soiree," the 67-year-old Pulitzer winner gave his $50-a-ticket audience of 150 a chance to vote on whether he should read certain passages containing descriptions of female genitalia. "I don't want to inflame any sensibilities," said Mailer, who is now 2,500 manuscript pages into a new book on the CIA.

Norman Mailer hunches forward in the small sound booth of a call-in radio show to make a point about the Kennedy assassination. "The key question, always: Is it conspiracy or is it accident?" he says. To illustrate, Mailer points to a technical glitch that has interrupted his conversations with callers three times. "One of the iron rules of thumb is that three coincidences make one conspiracy. But I'm willing to believe today that it's just the telephone line." Hmmm. The caller is not so sure.

Picasso studies are threatening to become the Kmart of 20th-Century art history. "My art is my diary," the master said, "it's even dated."

Soviet communism is dead, the KGB disgraced, the statues of Lenin toppled, and now, as if to rain on our party, comes Norman Mailer with "Harlot's Ghost," his staggering novel-cum-history of the Central Intelligence Agency and the ambiguities and excesses of the Cold War as it was waged in the '50s and early '60s. While columnists and congressmen rejoice in the alleged triumph of democracy, Mailer is only beginning to count the casualties.

Some years ago, I attempted to write a work of nonfiction that reconstructed the life of the historical Jesus. I knew that it was an impossible task and, for that reason, worth attempting, since human curiosity can never satisfy itself about the identity and character of a man whose destiny was to be hailed, three centuries after His birth, as Light of Light, God of God, very God of very God.

By one count, more than 1,000 books have been written about Marilyn Monroe. The “Some Like It Hot” star was at the center of last year's “My Week With Marilyn.” And anybody who's been to Palm Springs lately knows there are constant crowds around the 26-foot-tall statue of the actress. But wait, there's more: Documentarian Liz Garbus (“Bobby Fisher Against the World”) has a new look at the troubled blond, based on a cache of her personal papers unearthed in recent years.

Since her death on Aug. 5, 1962, hundreds of books about Marilyn Monroe have been published by various writers, ranging from famous names such as Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem and Joyce Carol Oates, to people who worked with her on movie sets. With so many choices, its hard to navigate through the Monroe oeuvre, but here are 10 volumes that should nourish the soul of her most ardent fans. "Marilyn: A Biography" (1973). Norman Mailer's controversial, lavish, coffee-table exploration of Monroe includes stunning images by several noted photographers as well as the author's rather grandiose prose.

The Tea Fire was raging across the hills of Montecito, and T.C. Boyle was worried. He was worried about the safety of his home, as anyone near the flames would be, and that concern was amplified by the fact that the nearly century-old house was designed by no less than Frank Lloyd Wright. And then there were the papers: the highly combustible manuscripts, research, notes and bound volumes that constitute Boyle's life's work. Everything that had gone into writing two dozen books and 150 stories was stashed in Boyle's basement.

The suite at the Hotel Bel-Air where Bert Stern photographed Marilyn Monroe for her famous "Last Sitting" in 1962 no longer exists. It is now part of the elegant La Prairie Spa - rather apropos, as the often difficult star was well known for making people wait while relaxing in a hot bath. In 1972, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer took refuge a few steps away in one of the secluded bungalow-like rooms to soak up the ambience while writing his biographical essay on the tragic celebrity.

Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life Evan Hughes Holt Paperbacks: 352 pp., $16 On Sunday in Brooklyn, as people are standing in line to hear Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Egan and Jhumpa Lahiri, others will be parking their strollers so Adam Mansbach can sign copies of his alt-parenting book "Go the F-- to Sleep. " The Brooklyn Book Festival has become New York City's preeminent public daylong literary event - even though it takes place across the river from Manhattan, the epicenter of publishing.

Norris Church Mailer, an actress, model, author and painter who enjoyed and endured the ride of her life as the sixth and final wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, died at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She was 61. Her death was announced on the website of the Norman Mailer Society , which said she passed away "after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. " As Norris Mailer wrote in her 2010 memoir, "A Ticket to the Circus," she was a single mother in her mid-20s when she met the then-52-year-old Norman Mailer at a 1975 party in Russellville, Ark. Their attraction was immediate, even if he was breaking up with his fourth wife and seeing the woman who would become his fifth.

Norman Mailer and I meet for lunch at the Bel Air Hotel, his current favorite in Los Angeles. He is here doing publicity for the new anthology of his work, "The Time of Our Time." Everyone tells me that the only thing you can do with a man who has been interviewed over the decades as much as he has is try to derail him--make him mad. This makes me dread lunch, since it's a beautiful day and do I really want to argue with Norman Mailer?

Norman Mailer said he was "just along for the ride." Give us a break. The onetime enfant terrible of American letters has never willingly been known to take a back seat to anyone--although the other day he really tried. The female Mailer, his wife, Norris, was star of the pair's curious jaunt through L.A., to promote her own first book on local radio, TV, and at a home that's the L.A. social/political hot spot.

The voice explains a lot. You think, how could any woman live with the famously moody writer Norman Mailer for 33 years, and then you hear Norris Church Mailer's soft, authoritative, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice, with its 61-year-old Arkansas twang still intact, and you have a revelation about men and women. It is important to remember that "A Ticket to the Circus" (Random House: 432 pp., $26) is Norris's own memoir, not Norman's -- not even Mrs. Mailer's. It is the story of a girl, born in Arkansas in 1949, who came of age in the 1960s and struggled to find her way of contributing to the world, which was still a man's world.

In 1969, 600 million people -- one-fifth of the world's population -- watched the live television broadcast of the moonwalk. Leading art book publisher Taschen has not let the 40th anniversary go unheralded; its book " Norman Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11" is available in a limited edition of 1,969 copies. The book, which combines archival photos with text from Norman Mailer's 1970 book, "Of a Fire on the Moon," comes in a white resin case with a plexiglass porthole window and includes a poster signed by Buzz Aldrin (Taschen: 350 pp., limited edition, $1,500 and up)