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{{Infobox Writer| name = Norman Mailer| image = Normanmailer.jpg|thumb|Norman Mailer| imagesize = 208px| caption =| pseudonym =| birth_date = | birth_place =
Long Branch, New Jersey,
New Jersey,
]| nationality =
United States| period =| genre =
Fiction| influences =| influenced =| signature =| website =| footnotes =-->
Norman Kingsley Mailer (born [January 31, 1923) is an
United States novelist,
journalist,
playwright,
screenwriter and film director. Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of
creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called
New Journalism, but which covers the
essay to the nonfiction novel. He has been awarded the
Pulitzer Prize twice and the
National Book Award once. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
Biography
Mailer was born to a
Jewish family, (mother Fanny Schneider Mailer and father Isaace Barnett Mailer) in Long Branch, New Jersey, New Jersey. He was brought up in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Boys' High School and when he was only sixteen was admitted to
Harvard University in 1939, where he studied
aeronautical engineering. At the university, he became interested in writing and published his first story when he was 18.Mailer graduated from Harvard in 1943 was
Selective Service System into the
U.S. Army in
World War II and served in the
Pacific Ocean.
Writing life
Novels
In
1948, just before enrolling in the
University of Paris in Paris, he published a book that made him world-famous:
The Naked and the Dead, based on his personal experiences during World War II. It was hailed by many as one of the best American novels to come out of the war years and named one of the "
Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels" by the
Modern Library.
In the following years, Mailer continued to work in the field of the novel.
Barbary Shore (1951) was a surreal parable of Cold War left politics, set in a Brooklyn rooming-house. His 1955 novel
The Deer Park drew on his experiences working as a screenwriter in Hollywood in the early 1950s. It was initially rejected by six publishers owing to its sexual content.
Essays
In the mid-1950s, he became increasingly known for his counter-cultural essays. He was one of the founders of
The Village Voice in 1955 . In the book
Advertisements for Myself (
1959), including the essay
The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster (1957), Mailer examined violence, hysteria, sex, crime and confusion in American society, in both fictional and reportage forms. He has also been a frequent contributor of book reviews and long essays to
The New York Review of Books since its founding issue in 1963.
Other
Other famous works include:
The Presidential Papers (
1963),
An American Dream (
1965),
Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967),
Armies of the Night (1968, awarded a
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and National Book Award),
Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968),
Of a Fire on the Moon (1970),
The Prisoner of Sex (
1971),
Marilyn (1973),
The Fight (1975),
The Executioner's Song (
1979, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction),
Ancient Evenings (1983),
Harlot's Ghost (
1991),
Oswald's Tale (1995), and
The Castle in the Forest (
2007).
In 1968 he received a
George Polk Award for his reporting in
Harper's Magazine.
In the film Sleeper Woody Allen is shown a picture of Mailer, Allen confirms his identity and states that Mailer donated his ego to the Harvard Medical School.
In addition to his experimental fiction and
nonfiction novels, Mailer has produced a play version of
The Deer Park, and in the late 1960s directed a number of improvisational avant-garde films in a Warhol style, including
Maidstone (film) (1970), which includes a brutal brawl between
Norman T. Kingsley, played by himself, and
Rip Torn that may or may not have been planned. In
1987, he directed a film version of his novel
Tough Guys Don't Dance, starring Ryan O'Neal, which has become a minor camp classic.
Activism
A number of Mailer's nonfiction works, such as The
Armies of the Night and
The Presidential Papers, are political. He covered the
Republican National Convention and
Democratic National Conventions in 1960, 1964, 1968,
1972, 1992, and
1996. In 1967, he was arrested for his involvement in Vietnam War#Opposition to the war demonstrations. Two years later, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Party primary for
Mayor of New York City, allied with columnist Jimmy Breslin (who ran for City Council President), proposing New York City secession and creating a
51st state.
In
1980, Mailer spearheaded convicted killer
Jack Abbott's successful bid for
parole. He helped Abbott publish a collection of letters to Mailer about his experiences in prison. Abbott committed a murder within weeks of his release, and consequently, Mailer was subject to criticism for his role; in a 1992 interview, in the
Buffalo News, he conceded that his involvement was "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in."
Biographies
His biographical subjects have included Pablo Picasso and
Lee Harvey Oswald. His 1986
off-Broadway play
Strawhead starring his daughter, Kate, was about Marilyn Monroe. His 1973 biography of Monroe was particularly controversial: in its final chapter he stated that she was murdered by agents of the
FBI and
CIA who resented her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy. He later admitted that these speculations were "not good journalism."
Personal life
Mailer has been married six times, and has eight natural children and one adopted child by his various wives.
- He married first in 1944 to Beatrice Silverman before divorcing her in 1952.
- In 1960, Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, whom he married in 1954, with a penknife at a party. While Morales made a full physical recovery, in 1997 she published a memoir of their marriage entitled The Last Party, which outlined her perception of the incident. This incident has been a focal point for feminist critics of Mailer, who point to themes of sexual violence in his work.
- His third wife was the British heiress and journalist Jeanne Campbell (1929-2007), the only daughter of the 11th Duke of Argyll and a granddaughter of the press baron Lord Beaverbrook; by her, he had a daughter, Kate Mailer, who is an actress.
- His fourth marriage was to model turned actress Beverly Bentley, mother of his producer son Michael Mailer and actor son Stephen.
- His fifth wife Carol Stevens, with whom he had a daughter Maggie Alexander. They were married for one day.
- His sixth and current wife is the former Norris Church, a former model turned writer. They have one son, John Buffalo Mailer.
In 2005 he co-authored a book with his youngest child, John Buffalo Mailer, titled
The Big Empty. In 2007
Random House published his latest novel,
The Castle in the Forest.
He currently lives in Provincetown, MA.
References
- Norman Mailer, by Michael K. Glenday. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
- Radical Fictions and the Novels of Norman Mailer, by Nigel Leigh. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
- Critical Essays on Norman Mailer, edited by J.Michael Lennon: Boston, G.K.Hall and Co., 1986.
- Norman Mailer, by Richard Poirier, New York: Viking,1972. One of the best studies of Mailer's writing, tracking his career through the early Eighties.
- Norman Mailer, by Richard Jackson Foster, University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
- The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer, by Barry H. Leeds, New York University Press,1969.
- Norman Mailer, by Robert Merrill, Twayne, 1978.
- Mailer: His Life and Times, edited by Peter Manso, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Highly readable "oral" biography of Mailer created by cross-cutting interviews with friends, enemies, acquaintances, relatives, wives of Mailer and Mailer himself.
- Conversations with Norman Mailer, edited by J. Michael Lennon. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
- The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk)
Quotations
- "I take it for granted that there's a side of me that loves public action, and there's another side of me that really wants to be alone and work and write. And I've learned to alternate the two as matters develop."
- "I knew that there was one thing I wanted to be and that was a writer."
- "There are two kinds of brave men: those who are brave by the grace of nature, and those who are brave by an act of will."
Selected bibliography
Fiction
- The Naked and the Dead. New York: Rinehart, 1948.
- Barbary Shore. New York: Rinehart, 1951.
- The Deer Park. New York: Putnam's, 1955.
- An American Dream. New York: Dial, 1965.
- The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer. New York: Dell, 1967.
- Why are we in Vietnam? New York: Putnam's, 1967.
- Of Women and Their Elegance. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1980
- Ancient Evenings. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.
- Tough Guys Don't Dance. New York: Random House, 1984.
- Harlot's Ghost. New York: Random House, 1991.
- The Gospel According To The Son. New York: Random House, 1997.
- The Castle in the Forest. New York: Random House, 2007.
Non-Fiction
- The White Negro. San Francisco: City Lights, 1957.
- Advertisements for Myself. New York: Putnam's, 1959.
- The Presidential Papers.New York: Putnam, 1963.
- Cannibals and Christians. New York: Dial, 1966.
- Armies of the Night. New York: New American Library, 1968.
- Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968. New York: New American Library, 1968.
- Of a Fire on the Moon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969.
- The Prisoner of Sex. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.
- St. George and The Godfather. New York: Signet Classics, 1972.
- Marilyn (book). New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973.
- The Faith of Grafitti. New York: Praeger, 1974.
- The Fight (book). Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.
- The Executioner's Song. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.
- Pieces and Pontifications. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982.
- Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man: An Interpretative Biography. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.
- Oswald's Tale:An American Mystery. New York: Random House, 1996.
- Why Are We At War?. New York: Random House, 2003.
- The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing. New York: Random House, 2003.
Appearances
Appeared in an episode of Gilmore Girls as himself. Season 5,
Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant!
External links
- The Norman Mailer Society
- Norman Mailer on American Masters (PBS Broadcast)
- Norman and John Buffalo Mailer - "The Big Empty" recorded on 03/02/06 at
- Mailer's interview with The Paris Review
- Norman Mailer's writing on the Huffington Post
- Norman Mailer Filmmaker articles about Mailer's cinematic ventures
Mailer, Norman Kingsley
US writer and journalist ... Tiscali Quicklinks. Please visit our Accessibility Page for a list of the Access Keys you can use to find your way around the site, skip directly to ...
Norman Mailer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Norman Mailer
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Norman Mailer - Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre
Norman Kingsley Mailer (Long Branch, Nova Jérsei, 31 de Janeiro de 1923 — Nova Iorque, 10 de Novembro de 2007) foi um escritor estadunidense, premiado duas vezes com o Prêmio ...
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer, the son of Russian immigrants, was born in New Jersey on 31st January 1923. His father was an accountant and his mother ran a housekeeping and nursing ...
Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer. AKA Norman Kingsley Mailer. Born: 31-Jan-1923 Birthplace: Long Branch, NJ Died: 10-Nov-2007 Location of death: Manhattan, NY Cause of death: Kidney failure
Norman Mailer: A Who2 Profile
Norman Kingsley Mailer. Called "the macho prince of American letters" by the Associated Press, Norman Mailer was one of America's most famous and controversial writers in the years ...
Norman Mailer - Wikipédia
Norman Kingsley Mailer, né le 31 janvier 1923 à Long Branch dans le New Jersey aux États-Unis et mort le 10 novembre 2007 à New York, était un écrivain américain ...
Norman Mailer - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
Norman Kingsley Mailer conocido como Norman Mailer, (Long Branch, New Jersey, 31 de enero de 1923 - Nueva York, 10 de noviembre de 2007), escritor estadounidense.
Mailer, Norman Kingsley - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Mailer ...
Mailer, Norman Kingsley (1923- )