Born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Norman Mailer was one of the most influential writers of the second half of the twentieth century and a leading public intellectual for nearly sixty years. He is the author of more than thirty books. The Castle in the Forest, his last novel, was his eleventh New York Times bestseller. His first novel, The Naked and the Dead, has never gone out of print. His 1968 nonfiction narrative, The Armies of the Night, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He won a second Pulitzer for The Executioner’s Song and is the only person to have won Pulitzers in both fiction and nonfiction. Five of his books were nominated for National Book Awards, and he won a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation in 2005. Mr. Mailer died in 2007 in New York City.
Praise for Oswald’s Tale
“America’s largest mystery has found its greatest interpreter.”—The
Washington Post Book World
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything
he writes has sections of headlong brilliance. . . . From the
American master conjurer of dark and swirling purpose, a moving
reflection.”—Robert Stone, The New York Review of Books
“A narrative of tremendous energy and panache; the author at the
top of his form.”—Christopher Hitchens, Financial Times
“The performance of an author relishing the force and reach of his
own acuity.”—Martin Amis, The Sunday Times (London)
Praise for Norman Mailer
“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger
than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times
“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New
Yorker
“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington
Post
“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything
he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review
of Books
“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature .
. . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James,
Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each
new book.”—Chicago Tribune
“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through
the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post
Mailer opines that Lee Harvey Oswald was a sincere Marxist, a nihilist and an inveterate liar who was motivated to assassinate John F. Kennedy in order to shake up the world, to create the conditions for a new kind of society superior to American capitalism or Soviet-style communism. Oswald, he suggests, was quite possibly the lone gunman, or at least may have thought he was‘in Mailer's scenario, there may have been other assassins present, unbeknownst to Oswald, conspirators working for some other group. His unconvincing analysis emerges from a labyrinthine pastiche of KGB and FBI transcripts, recorded dialogues, speculations, Oswald's letters and diary excerpts, and government memos. Mailer interviewed Oswald's widow, Marina, and also spent months in Minsk interviewing Oswald's Russian acquaintances and co-workers as well as KGB officers. Pretentiously applying the novelistic techniques used to better effect in The Executioner's Song, Mailer ploddingly recreates Oswald's day-to-day existence in the Soviet Union, then in New Orleans and Dallas in the months leading up to Kennedy's assassination. He hypothesizes that Oswald was a provocateur playing a double-edged game with the U.S. and Russian intelligence communities to further his own self-styled mission. Author tour. (May)
Praise for Oswald's Tale
"America's largest mystery has found its greatest
interpreter."-The Washington Post Book World
"Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything
he writes has sections of headlong brilliance. . . . From the
American master conjurer of dark and swirling purpose, a moving
reflection."-Robert Stone, The New York Review of Books
"A narrative of tremendous energy and panache; the author at the
top of his form."-Christopher Hitchens, Financial Times
"The performance of an author relishing the force and reach of his
own acuity."-Martin Amis, The Sunday Times
(London)
Praise for Norman Mailer
"[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger
than any other writer of his generation."-The New York
Times
"A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent."-The New
Yorker
"Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure."-The
Washington Post
"A devastatingly alive and original creative mind."-Life
"Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything
he writes has sections of headlong brilliance."-The New York
Review of Books
"The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature .
. . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James,
Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each
new book."-Chicago Tribune
"Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through
the story like a leaf on a stream."-The Cincinnati
Post
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