Norman Mailer: An Annotated Bibliography

Weber, Brom. “A Fear of Dying: Norman Mailer’s An American Dream.” The Hollins Critic 2. (1965): Literature Resource Center June 1965. http://infotrac.galegroup.com.

Mailers antipathy for American life is critically viewed through the central character Stephen Richards Rojack. Through Rojacks experiences, it seems that Mailer does not anticipate any type of appeasement towards American Life. It goes further into discussion of Mailer’s views towards American culture and the de-individualism of man from society. Rojack’s life is compared to medieval Europe were ultimately God and the Devil fight for his soul and in the end it is hard to tell who ultimately won. Weber processed to show that Rojacks killing his wife was his own way of individual freedom of the failure he now perceives as his life. The perception Rojack has on his experiences is deemed the most important aspect of the viability of the novel.

Kimball, Roger. "Norman Mailer's American dream." New Criterion 16.3 (1997): 4. Academic Search Premier. 7 April 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Kimball reflects on Mailer’s life related to the study of America’s Cultural Revolution. Mailers first novel “The Naked and the Dead” is criticized as being downright embarrassing yet he received wealth and celebrity from this novel. Throughout this critique on Mailer, Kimball constantly expresses his contempt for Mailer and the confounding success his novels acclaimed. According to Kimball, all of Mailer’s novels were just written badly. He goes to state that in “An American Dream” Rojack getting away with murdering his wife is the unrecognized American Dream. Mailers sex obsession is explored and criticized starting with Marilyn Monroe’s picture book. It goes on to say that his descriptions of sex are a disgrace. Kimball concludes to say that Mailer’s importance to America’s Cultural Revolution was because people actually took this man seriously.

McCann, Sean. "The imperiled republic: Norman Mailer and the poetics of anti-liberalism." ELH 67.1 (2000): 293. Academic Search Premier. 7 April 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

McCann begins comparing Mailers acclaimed novel “The Executioner’s Song” and Gilmore’s memoir of “Shot in the Dark.” Mailer focuses on “American virtue” related to the effects social institutions had on the execution of Gary Gilmore. Mikal Gilmore instead focuses on the effects that one heritage and bloodline had on the execution of Gary. McCann uses this comparison to show that Gilmore’s account is seem to be more accurate and that Mailer has gone out of style. McCann goes further to review Mailers view that his literary success was dependent on the political status of the nation at the time. “The Naked and the Dead” depicts American politics and mocks the liberal vision that American society viewed through vision of the war. McCann goes into detail of Mailers political views and his thoughts on the state America is in currently. To conclude McCann delves further on the political views of Mailer through “Ancient Evenings” where he reflects on political views and the escape of individualism from societies restraints.