Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer, (1923- ). US novelist and writer. Mailer studied at Harvard University and spent two years on active service during World War II, His wartime experiences provided the basis of his first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948). A similar preoccupation with violence, male comradeship and personal integrity is apparent in his later novels, which include The Deer Park (1955), An American Dreath (1965), Ancient Evenings (1983), Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1984), and Harlot’s Ghost (1991). His major non-fiction writings include Why Are We .in Vietnam? (1967), The Armies Of the Night (1968), about the anti-war movement, and Marilyn (1973), about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Many of his books blur the distinction between journalism and fiction, notably The Executioner’s Song (1979), a fictionalized version of the life and death of Gary Gilmore, a real-life murderer, and Oswald’s Tale (1995), about the assassin of President Kennedy.
