Mind of an Outlaw
Selected Essays
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
The definitive Norman Mailer collection, as he writes on Marilyn Monroe, culture, ideology, boxing, Hemingway, politics, sex, celebrity and - of course - Norman Mailer
From his early 'A Credo for the Living', published in 1948, when the author was twenty-five, to his final writings in the year before his death, Mailer wrestled with the big themes of his times. He was one of the most astute cultural commentators of the postwar era, a swashbuckling intellectual provocateur who never pulled a punch and was rarely anything less than interesting. Mind of an Outlaw spans the full arc of Mailer's evolution as a writer, including such essential pieces as his acclaimed 1957 meditation on hipsters, 'The White Negro'; multiple selections from his wonderful Advertisements for Myself; and a never-before-published essay on Freud. The book is introduced by Jonathan Lethem.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 50 essays collected in this retrospective volume span 64 years and show Mailer (1923 2007) at his brawny, pugnacious, and egotistical best. Although early selections seem dated among them, "The Homosexual Villain," his confession of his ignorance of, and hence past uneasiness with, homosexuality he hits his stride with the 1957 classic "The White Negro," which equates the mindset of white hipster rebels with the sensibility of American blacks, who have "been living on the margin between totalitarianism and democracy for two centuries." Here, Mailer also draws parallels between outlaw minds and criminal psychopaths, a thread that winds through several essays, notably "Until Dead," prompted by the execution of Gary Gilmore (subject of Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Executioner's Song), and "Discovering Jack H. Abbott," which launched his campaign to get convicted murderer Abbott released from prison. Mailer's many interests led him to topics including his contemporaries' novels, Marilyn Monroe's films, black power, and politics. He's sharpest when writing about himself, as in the title essay, an engrossing account of getting his novel The Deer Park published. Featuring an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, this provocative collection brims with insights and reflections that show why Mailer is regarded as a great literary mind of his generation.
