While one may see in this book many of the characteristics, themes and incidents of Miller's writing that would one day cause him to be recognized a true original, if not truely great, I doubt that this is a book that anyone other than a die hard Miller fan would like. It is early stuff for Miller, who was just learning his own voice as a writer, and lacks the exuberance and passion of his later work. It probably will find its place mostly as an item to be studied by Miller scholars but I can't imagine actually reading it for pleasure when one could turn to the later and much better books like the 'Tropic' books and Sexus, Nexus and Plexus.

Some of us think that Miller is a great writer, but he had not yet become one when he wrote this.

Although, Mr. Miller, was not young when he wrote this novel, he was without a doubt, still in his full mental faculties. I love this man. When you can't sleep at night, or want something to make you laugh, or cry (at times). The works of Henr Miller fits just what you are looking for at all times. Every concievable emotion is in every book by him. Every soul should at least read one of his novels before they die! This man was a truly unrecognized genius and it is a shame that we live in this modern age and still can't give some credit to a man who revolutionized literature for an entire generation

Mailer stands as one of the most biographied of living important writers, and you wonder why Dearborn bothered with this project at all. I would guess it was precisely because there is so much already extant material, primary and secondary, that she thought the material would fall together in a sing song formula, a recital of grimmly familiar facts. Such seems the case. The "unprecedented" access she has to you materials in regards to Mailer's work and life is a reedy claim, a dead blade of grass the wind blows away, and the author's absolute inability to bring any insight, interpretation or analysis to Mailer's work is infuriating. Now , one may presume, Mailer's career is at a point when the longer view of a 51 years of writing is most what this work demands, and Dearborn gives us summer re-runs. This book is like reading old gossip magazines. One mourns the trees sacrificed to print this screed.

Ms. Dearborn's book, though a good read, seems to be mostly an update of the previous biographies of Mailer. It's not clear what else she brought to the subject. Her views of Mailer's books are fairly representative of conventional wisdom (she liked "Armies of the Night", didn't like "Of a Fire on the Moon") and her efforts to chronicle his personal foibles are fairly predictable. I admit my bias as an unabashed Mailer fan, and perhaps that led me to expect more discussion of the literary aspects of Mailer's life, since the personal matters had already been examined extensively by Hillary Mills and others. Still, I enjoyed the book.

Norman Mailer is the Ultimate Bad Boy. Jay McInerny and Bret Easton Ellis are nothing compared to Norman. He paved the way and it's really interesting to read about the life of someone who has made it as a bad boy. The women who fall for him, the publishers who pay him mountains of money... he is a talented writer, but it leads the reader to the question about how much we all overcompensate artist celebrities. I saw the pictures of the beautiful women and read the descriptions of their magnetic personalities and I couldn't imagine why they chose to overlook his enormous ego. But I shouldn't sound superior. I read the whole book in a weekend.

People generally speak of this bio when talking about "the good ones" on Henry Miller. I disagree. While in-depth, many facts listed are incorrect because of a lack of checking (although many checkers were used) with factual records. Dearborne's biggest angle seems to be to show that Miller was always a closet homosexual & June was a lesbian junkie. While interesting to fans of Miller, a much better written, more accurate biography is available from Robert Ferguson & I would highly recommend reading his version over Dearborne's if you were to only read one Miller bio.