Mailer: his life and times.

AuthorRemnick, David

Did you hear about the time when Norman tipped over the...? Is Norman's bigger than...? Anecdote and reputation: that is the stuff, the stuffing really, of Peter Manso's relentless compliation of 150 interviews on the subject of Norman Mailer.

It's almost as if Mailer has deliberately created himself to be the source not only of shimmering autobiographical work, as in Armies of the Night and Advertisements for Myself, but also of biography. His life is as evocative and evolving as an endless Oriental scroll painting: early fame, excursions, triumph and error. Mailer's life calls out for a biographer of brilliance, one able to do a bit more than collect tape recordings.

Organized like George Plimpton's and Jean Stein's book on the femme fatale Warhol socialite, Edie Sedgwick, Mailer begins with little Norman in short pants and ends with him writing Tough Guys Don't Dance to pay the bills. The collage-interview form here is one of intellectual laziness and provides, at best...

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