Norman Mailer dies, aged 84
Updated on 10 November 2007
Norman Mailer - author, fighter, journalist and serial husband - has died after six decades of writing and arguing.
Unusually for a writer, Norman Mailers actions would sometimes, some would say often, overshadow his words. Shirtless he was the so called macho man of American letters brawling in the film Maidstone which he directed. No one sure if the footage is was for real, as Mailer bit his co-star's ear.
His books were as provocative, he wrote more than 40 of them. He was one of the leading voices of post war America - but his books which contained violence and were sometimes sexually graphic were not always universally acclaimed.
His first novel certainly was, The Naked and the Dead published in the late forties when he was just 25 established his reputation. Based on his experiences of the 2nd world war, he found himself anointed the new Hemingway, the writer who he said inspired him.
When Truman Capote said: "He has no talent. None, none, none." He sat on him.
The Executioner's Song - an account of the execution of Gary Gilmore won Mailer his second Pulitzer prize and it was his non-fiction writing, as much as his novels that forged his reputation.
A former amateur boxer his book 'The Fight' - about Mohammed Ali and George Foreman's rumble in the jungle was hailed as one of the greatest example of sports journalism.
From the landing on the moon to an account of anti-Vietnam war protests - Norman Mailer always had something to say about the social and political events affecting America.
Some critics claimed that Norman Mailers literary legacy was damaged by his brash, fighting, feuding public persona - he developed as he put it a perverse appetite for publicity
The feuds were legendary. When Truman Capote said: " He has no talent. None, none, none." He sat on him.
After a row with his wife Adele Morales Mailer he stabbed her twice with a penknife.
he enraged the feminists Germaine Greer & Kate Millett with his views that all women should be locked in cages. They called him "the first male chauvinist pig".
And when Gore Vidal criticised his writing he headbutted him and then six year later threw a drink at him and punched him. Vidal remarked "Once again, words fail Norman Mailer"
He was married six times, and where words did fail him was when it came to writing about that attack on his second wife.
His last novel The Castle in the Forest was about Hitler's early years, and Mailer knew then that his years were coming to an end. He was 84 when he died.
