The Cinema of Norman Mailer: Film is Like Death not only examines the enfant terrible writer's thoughts on cinema, but also features interviews with Norman Mailer himself. The Cinema of Norman Mailer also explores Mailer's cinema through previously published and newly commissioned essays written by an array of film and literary scholars, enthusiasts, and those with a personal, philosophical connection to Mailer. This volume discusses the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and filmmaker's six films created during the years of 1947 and 1987, and contends to show how Mailer's films can be best read as cinematic delineations that visually represent many of the writer's metaphysical and ontological concerns and ideas that appear in his texts from the 1950s until his passing in 2007. By re-examining Mailer's cinema through these new perspectives, one may be awarded not just a deeper understanding of Mailer's desire to make films, but also find a new, alternative vision of Mailer himself. Norman Mailer was not just a writer, but more: he was one of the most influential Postmodern artists of the twentieth century with deep roots in the cinema. He allowed the cinema to not only influence his aesthetic approach, but sanctioned it as his easiest-crafted analogy for exploring sociological imagination in his writing. Mailer once suggested, "Film is legitimately more interesting than books..." and with that in mind, readers of Norman Mailer might begin to rethink his oeuvre through the viewfinder of the film medium, as he was equally as passionate about working within cinema as he was about literature itself.

The Cinema of Norman Mailer: Film is Like Death not only examines the enfant terrible writer's thoughts on cinema, but also features interviews with Norman Mailer himself. The Cinema of Norman Mailer also explores Mailer's cinema through previously published and newly commissioned essays written by an array of film and literary scholars, enthusiasts, and those with a personal, philosophical connection to Mailer. This volume discusses the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and filmmaker's six films created during the years of 1947 and 1987, and contends to show how Mailer's films can be best read as cinematic delineations that visually represent many of the writer's metaphysical and ontological concerns and ideas that appear in his texts from the 1950s until his passing in 2007. By re-examining Mailer's cinema through these new perspectives, one may be awarded not just a deeper understanding of Mailer's desire to make films, but also find a new, alternative vision of Mailer himself. Norman Mailer was not just a writer, but more: he was one of the most influential Postmodern artists of the twentieth century with deep roots in the cinema. He allowed the cinema to not only influence his aesthetic approach, but sanctioned it as his easiest-crafted analogy for exploring sociological imagination in his writing. Mailer once suggested, "Film is legitimately more interesting than books..." and with that in mind, readers of Norman Mailer might begin to rethink his oeuvre through the viewfinder of the film medium, as he was equally as passionate about working within cinema as he was about literature itself.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [907]-914) and index.

THE TIME OF OUR TIME is a selection of Mailer's best work, chosen by Mailer himself, and ingeniously arranged as a literary retrospective. It is a masterly, boisterous portrait of our times, seen through the fiction and reportage of a great writer. Included are passages from THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT and THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG, as well as many of his other works and his best-known magazine pieces from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. This giant omnibus is a testament to Mailer's enormous energies, his vast curiosity, and his amazing talent and amounts almost to a self-chosen literary 'autobiography'.

Beginning with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer has repeatedly told the truth about war. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the gravity of the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to die. First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration’s words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: “Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered. . . . To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad.” Praise for Why Are We at War? “We’re overloaded with information these days, some of it possibly true. Mailer offers a provocative—and persuasive—cultural and intellectual frame.”—Newsweek “[Mailer] still has the stamina to churn out hard-hitting criticism.”—Los Angeles Times “Penetrating . . . There’s plenty of irreverent wit and fresh thinking on display.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . thoughtful . . . Why Are We at War? pulls no punches.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

For more than 50 years, Norman Mailer was at the forefront of American letters and popular culture. In this work, originally published to acclaim 20 years ago, Manso reveals the man behind the legend like never before--or since. Photos throughout.

BONUS: This edition contains an A Ticket to the Circus discussion guide. In this revealing memoir, told with southern charm and wit, Norris Church Mailer depicts the full evolution of her colorful life—from her childhood in a small Arkansas town all the way through her intense thirty-three-year marriage with Norman Mailer and his heartbreaking death. She met Norman by chance while in her early twenties and they fell in love in one night. Theirs was a marriage full of friendship, betrayal, doubts, understanding, challenges, and deep, complicated, lifelong passion. The couple’s New York parties were legendary, and their social circle included such luminaries as Jacqueline Kennedy, Truman Capote, and Gore Vidal. Complete with the couple’s intimate letters, this candid and unforgettable memoir is a great American love story.