Mailer A Biography [Paperback]

Undeniably one of the most controversial figures of the past half-century, Mailer has also been one of the most influential. He has both made the news and commented on it with an originality that has permanently altered America's literary landscape. Mary Dearborn had unprecedented access to Mailer's friends, relations, and antagonists, who provided key insights to fill in the familiar outlines of the Mailer myth, the brilliant successes and notorious failures. As splendidly told by Dearborn, Mailer's story is, for good or ill, the story of our times.

Undeniably one of the most controversial figures of the past half-century, Mailer has also been one of the most influential. He has both made the news and commented on it with an originality that has permanently altered America's literary landscape. Mary Dearborn had unprecedented access to Mailer's friends, relations, and antagonists, who provided key insights to fill in the familiar outlines of the Mailer myth, the brilliant successes and notorious failures. As splendidly told by Dearborn, Mailer's story is, for good or ill, the story of our times.

PROLOGUE: COCK OF THE WALK

He was to go on in ten minutes, and the air in the room was charged. Over five hundred people eddied around the Four Seasons, the legendary dining spot on Manhattan's East Fifty-second Street. Near the buffet tables -- covered with silver trays of Hungarian goulash, quiche Lorraine, paté with hazelnuts -- the jazz harpist Daphne Hellman plucked her instrument, which was nearly inaudible over the party noise. Avant-garde composer and musician David Amram and his quartet played on the mezzanine, and a country and western group called the Foodstamps waited in the wings, to perform after midnight when the guests, it was hoped, would want to dance. At his side stood his assistant, Suzanne Nye, whom the columnists called his great friend ; Carol Stevens, his mistress and the mother of his youngest childlók