Norman Mailer A Double Life [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING] Lennon, J., Michael [Fine] [Hardcover]

Description

Fine unread condition white boards with a black spine and gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by J. Michael Lennon; Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quote by Norman Mailer; Prologue: The Riptides of Fame: June 1948; Appreciations; Books by Norman Mailer; Notes; Select Bibliography; Photo Credits; and Index. Illustrated with a section of black-and-white photographic plates. The upper rear jacket edge has a thin bit of rubbing (see photographs). All pages are in as new condition and the thick spine/binding is exceedingly tight and perfectly square (see photographs). ""Norman Mailer was one of the giants of American letters and one of the most celebrated public figures of his time. He was a novelist, journalist, biographer, and filmmaker; a provocateur and passionate observer of his times; and a husband, father, and serial philanderer. Perhaps nothing characterized Mailer more than his unbounded ambition. He wanted not merely to be the greatest writer of his generation, but a writer great enough to be compared to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. As Michael Lennon describes, he even had presidential ambitions, although he settled for running for mayor of New York City. He championed personal freedom and civil liberties, calling himself a ""left conservative"" and yet he was Enemy #1 of the Women's Movement. He was as pugnacious in real life as in print, engaging in famous feuds and fights. Although he considered himself first and foremost a novelist, his greatest literary contribution may have been in journalism, where he used his novelistic gifts in tandem with self-revelation to explore the American psyche. In that regard, the subtitle of his Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Armies of the Night is telling: ""History as a Novel, the Novel as History."" He would return to certain subjects obsessively: John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monore, sex, technology, and the intricate relationship of fame and identity. Michael Lennon's definitive biography captures Mailer in all his sharp complexities and shows us how he self-consciously invented and reinvented himself throughout his lifetime. Michael Lennon knew Mailer for thirty-five years, and in writing this biography, he has had the cooperation of Mailer's late widow, Norris Church, his ex-wives, and all of his children, as well as his sister, Barbara. He also had access to Mailer's vast, unpublished correspondence and papers, and he interviewed dozens of people who knew Mailer. Norman Mailer: A Double Life gives us the man in full, a remarkable and unique figure in the context of his times."" - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.