Understanding Norman Mailer

✍ Scribed by Maggie McKinley

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 148
• Series: (Understanding Contemporary American Literature)
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

As a renowned novelist, journalist, biographer, playwright, speaker, aspiring politician, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Norman Mailer was one of the most prominent American literary and cultural figures of the second half of the twentieth century. Over the course of his expansive sixty-year career, Mailer published nearly forty original works of fiction and nonfiction, served as a counterculture activist, and was cofounder of the Village Voice. Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Mailer also received the National Book Award and the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to Arts and Letters, a lifetime achievement award granted by the National Book Foundation.

Understanding Norman Mailer is the first book of literary criticism to address Mailer’s impressive body of work in its entirety, from his first publication to his last. Situating these volumes in their historical and cultural context, Maggie McKinley traces the major themes and philosophies that pervade Mailer’s canon, analyzing his representations of gender, sexuality, violence, technology, politics, faith, celebrity, existentialism, and national identity. McKinley moves chronologically through Mailer’s career, illuminating the many genres, styles, and perspectives with which Mailer experimented over time, demonstrating his remarkable artistic reach. McKinley also addresses Mailer’s reputation as a combative public figure who, amid controversy surrounding his personal life and public persona, remained committed to lively intellectual debate.

Through Understanding Norman Mailer, an accessible introduction to Mailer’s life and work, McKinley offers a unique retrospective, articulating the development and changes within Mailer’s ideas over time while highlighting concerns that remained at the center of his work for decades.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
UNDERSTANDING NORMAN MAILER
Title
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Preface
Chapter 1 Understanding Norman Mailer
Chapter 2 The Naked and the Dead and Its Aftermath
Chapter 3 An American Voice and An American Dream
Chapter 4 Mailer on War, Women, Politics, and Film
Chapter 5 Exploring American Mysteries: Mailer’s Interpretive Biographies
Chapter 6 The Divided Self across Genre: Novels of the 1980s and 1990s
Chapter 7 Concluding with Questions
Notes
Bibliography
Index