Life With Mailer

Now, at 56, Mailer is beginning to show signs of retrenchment. A few years ago, he proclaimed, “A writer of the largest dimension can alter the nerves and marrow of a nation.” Does he himself still aspire to that dimension? “I no longer think I’m that large. Ten years ago I had greater hopes for my future than I do now,” he confesses. “I’m just another one of the characters on stage.” Besides, “you can die trying to write a masterwork.”

In Life With Mailer, James Atlas examines the life and literary career life of enigmatic novelist and raconteur Norman Mailer, from his meteoric rise to his rocky decline. On the eve of the publication of Executioner’s Song, Mailer’s 1,000-page masterpiece, the author, somber in middle-age, finds himself recalibrating his literary expectations.

Life With Mailer was originally published in the New York Times Magazine, September 9, 1979.

Cover design by Adil Dara.