The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Carl Rollyson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2000

Pulitzer Prize winner, movie director, boxer, politician, novelist, wife-stabber. Who is Norman Mailer?

In this first literary biography of Norman Mailer, Rollyson draws on new interviews and unpublished and manuscripts to reveal the shifting personas this most controversial writer.

This book gets at the heart of Mailer's obsession with violence and sheds new light on the novelist's involvement with Jack Abbott, the prison writer who fatally stabbed an aspiring young actor.

Showing how Mailer obsessively invented himself, this biography portrays a major literary figure in the making -- from his precocious debut with The Naked and the Dead to his most recent novel, Harlot's Ghost.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The lives of Mailer, like the facets of his character, are many, because he keeps inventing himself. That is the underlying premise of Rollyson's attempt to grapple with this large literary talent cum bully-boy cum Jewish leprechaun, a rebel with many causes, who from his stunningly successful early novel The Naked and the Dead to his current Harlot's Ghost has bobbed and jabbed in combat with his critics and his times. Mailer's an aggressor with charm, a star performer with a penchant for shooting himself in the foot. Novelist, essayist, journalist, movie director (of his film Tough Guys Don't Dance a critic said, "Tough guys shouldn't direct"), amateur pugilist, reputed misogynist six times married, Pulitizer Prize winner--Mailer has been all these; and in this amply researched and sharp-eyed study there's nourishing fare for both his admirers and his detractors. Rollyson, biographer of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman and Martha Gellhorn, aptly does a good deal of jabbing and weaving himself in trying to catch a man who seems to have made flight from the gentility of his background an obsession, who has kept inventing himself perhaps because he has never quite found himself. But Rollyson may go too far in calling his subject a genius. Photos. 25,000 first printing; $35,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Rollyson is in fine fettle in this first literary biography of Norman Mailer. Doted on as a child by his mother, Mailer has constantly had to "reinvent" himself to prevent a crippling sense of failure after the heady success of his first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948). Since then, Mailer's fiction, reportage, and essays (notably "The White Negro" of the "hip" Fifties) has extolled the individual's struggle against postwar conformity--while at the same time snubbing women. Unfortunately (aside from such things as stabbing his second wife), his excessive need to live what he writes has resulted in an uneven portrayal of the American Dream. The author suggests Mailer may have had his last success, but his story is definitely "To Be Continued." Copious notes, photographs, and a bibliography are included. Index not seen. Recommended for both lay readers and scholars.
- Kenneth Mintz, Hoboken P.L.,
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 460 pages
• Publisher: toExcel; illustrated edition edition (December 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583489967
• ISBN-13: 978-1583489963
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,334,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Author reviews own book?, December 25, 2011

By 

Peter Manso (Oakland, CA.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography (Hardcover)

If I'm not mistaken, this is an amazon.com first -- an author posting a review of his own work. What gives? Has all decorum gone out the window?

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, January 24, 2001

By 

Carl Rollyson (Cape May Court House, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography (Paperback)

Leon Edel said this about my biography: "A low-keyed narrative of the novelist and journalist from enfant terrible to grizzled sexagenarian designed to seek out the literary artist behind the mask of self-advertisement. Complete with domesticity--sweethearts, wives, progeny, and four-letter words. A very good read."