Norman Mailer, the bad conscience and public accuser of all things American, died yesterday, Saturday November 10th, at age 84, succumbing to renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital. Author of about thirty books, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, he was one of the most flamboyant protagonists of the American intellectual scene, decade after decade.
Born Norman Kingsley, on January 31, 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, in a middle-class Jewish family, Mailer, a brilliant student, entered Harvard in 1939, where he graduated in aeronautical engineering four years later, fought in the Pacific during World War II. In 1948, he published The Naked and the Dead, a war novel whose raw realism won instant critical and popular acclaim: the book was translated in twenty languages
Later on, the writer became known as a critical and subversive observer of the US, in works dealing with the ever-changing flow of current affairs and his own life's: An American Dream (1965), Why Are We In Vietnam? (1967), The Armies of the Night (Pulitzer prize, 1969) and Prisoner of Sex (1971). Most of his books stirred some degree of controversy: from Marilyn (1973), a novelized biography of Marilyn Monroe, to The Executioner's Song (Pulitzer prize, 1980), an epic, sprawling narrative based on more than 300 interviews of death-row inmate Gary Gilmore, considered by many to be his masterpiece, and of the best illustrations of his journalistic work, a style of literary reportage mixing fiction and nonfiction.
As years went by, Norman Mailer built his own biographical legend, that of a turbulent literary figure, basking in self-complacency and scandal: a brawler and a boxer, a big mouth and a hard drinker, heavy smoker, and inveterate philanderer, he got married six times – stabbed one of his spouses, Adele in 1960. His last wife was painter Norris Church –, made five awesomely bad movies, ran for mayor of New York (not his smartest move), recited pornographic poetry (no comment) or publicly insulted fellow writer Gore Vidal, among (many) other things...
The co-founder of the Village Voice never stopped writing. And he proceeded to climb more mountains: his penultimate book, The castle in the Forest, released early 2007, is a novel about Hitler's youth, told by a demon, an underling of Satan. His last book, An Uncommon Conversation, was also his last-ditch affirmation of an obstinate life-wish.
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