A vulgar and profane metahporical rant, "Why Are We In Vietnam?" is highly entertaining and certainly unique, but pales in comparison to "The Executioner's Song," which is far and away Mailer's best work.

If the author wanted to make an iconoclastic statement about America and it's people, fine. But in terms of an anti-Vietnam message it's a bit of a reach.

Really this novel should be called "Why We Are in Vietnam", because after reading this work, the answer to Mailer's original question is plain to see. His best work, and for once not overly-long! A good book to show you just how powerful good writing can be.

Two raunchy, young Texans go to Alaska with their fathers to hunt bighorn sheep from a helicopter. Vietnam is mentioned in the last two sentences of the novel. If you can't figure out the relationship, you probably think that John Wayne was a great American hero ...
In a way, it's a pity that Mailer tied this story so closely to a specific war, because the book is powerfully relevant to Americans' view of themselves in many other historical contexts. But it's not a dull dissertation; it's entertaining, lively, and often hilarious. Still very much worth reading.

yeah, this book's pretty good if you like strong characters and no storyline. Its set in the 50s in a desert town populated by rich and powerful Hollywood people, and our hero wanders around getting to know these corrupt, weird and sometimes dangerous characters without anything really happening. But hey, its insightful and written with real verve by Mr Mailer, just don't expect too much from the storyline.

'The Deer Park' should become compulsary reading for the human race - forget school reading lists. It is an absolute masterpiece and Mailer's way words could knock Donna Tartt (author of Secret History) for six any day of the week. If you want to read a real masterpiece - sink your teeth into Mailer's 'Deer Park.' James P. Robinson

an exellent book. good introduction to mailer
much more enjoyable read than his novels

Not every essay, sketch and meditation in this collection is a classic, but each one is valuable in its own right. Mailer muses on a variety of topics with great insight, wit and rhetorical finesse.

wow....this book was very good. cool, yo!

I'm a fan of oral biographies, of which this is one. I like the immediacey of collected interview quotes, so like the way this book was presented. It's an interesting look at Mailer's life. The bit that impressed me most, was the example of the liberal elite giving a free pass to Mailer for committing a violent crime because he was one of theirs. When Mailer stabbed his wife, sending her to the hospital for a good stay, and himself to an insane asylum, the New York liberal elite pretty much excused Mailer for his behavior! The cocktail party talk about Mailer in Fifth Ave apartments was that Norman must have been a little upset, etc. He was in their clique so it was okay! It was a total duplication of the liberal elites' excusing of Bill Clinton's raping Juanita Broaddrick (read Christopher Hitchens' book NO ONE LEFT TO LIE TO for more on that). Hitchens interviewed three women who independent of each other said Bill Clinton raped them. But the liberal elite excuses Bill Clinton because he's one of theirs! I can't help but think that being a member of the liberal elite is like being the member of a cult. Anyway, it's stuff like this that makes Manso's biography of Mailer worth reading.

This book contains some of the best and last images ever taken of Marilyn. There are also quiet a lot of pictures taking on various movie sets, mainly "The Misfits". As highly as i recommend this book for the photography alone, i can not totally endorse the written part by famous writer Norman Mailer. He borrows heavily here from another biography and touches on the theory that Marilyn was murdered..all without any proof. One get's the feeling that the text borrows also a lot from the Authors imagination rather than fact. I would ordinarily give this book 5 Stars for the pictures and the oversized format. Also..GREAT COVER!

Although over twenty-years old, this interesting book is a clearly readable and scholarly study of the issues of Norman Mailer's fiction. Critical, though not diatribal, the book is interesting because it is a genuine study of Mailer's work, rather than a bunch of quotes, citations, and contorted relations to obscure authors.

Most of the issues are broached: Mailer's sense of masculinity, the hip, and the racial and gender issues raised by his "philosophical hipster." Thankfully present is an all too brief discussion of the morality engendered by Mailer's philosophical perspective, somewhat limited by the scope of work that Ehrlich is dealing with.

A good resource for those studying Mailer's particular cosmology of the individual.

It may be hard to believe now but there was a time when Norman Mailer was America's leading prose writer. Before he descended into self-parody, Mailer was America's leading novelist and its most controversial essayist. Some Honorable Men, which covers twelve years of Mailer's writing (in this case, focusing on the presidential conventions of '60, '64, '68, and '72), allows the reader to follow Mailer as he goes from cocky, young know-it-all through the first hints of middle age and the sourness it brings with it to finally, the beginnings of Mailer's transformation from a serious artist to an overused punchline. In doing so, it also provides an insightful, often times cruelly humorous view of the transformation of the American political system. For both reasons, this is a valuable book for any student of literature or political history.

The book begins with one of Mailer's strongest peices of writing -- Superman comes to the Supermarket which provides wonderful converage of an oddly neglected piece of political history -- the 1960 Democratic convention that resulted in the nomination of John F. Kennedy and the final gasp of the "intellectual" wing of the Democratic party. Writing in his best sarcastic prose, Mailer shows us how the Kennedy glamour was used to blind observers to any possible concerns and how the overly earnest efforts of Adlai Stevenson's supporters to win the nomination for their candidate were defeated by Stevenson's own refusal to admit he was a politician first, a super hero second. Though Mailer attempts to be critical of the Kennedys (even as he barely hides his lust for Jackie), its still obvious that he, too, has been enraptured by just the pure showmanship of the first showbiz presidency. Though Mailer does show some sympathy to the Stevenson forces, its also clear that -- for him as with the rest of America -- the dour self-righteousness of the Stevenson liberals has run its course. In short, this essay -- whether intentional or not -- serves as a perfect introduction to all that Camelot would become and one gets the feeling that Mailer's seduction perfectly follows the seduction of the rest of America. In short, this essay is a perfect example of a genius as the top of his game and a reminder that Norman Mailer actually could write when he let himself.

The second essay -- "In the Red Light" -- is minor Mailer and is mostly interesting just because of the absolute dread inspired within Mailer by the thought of having Barry Goldwater as President. In prose so sarcastic that it finally becomes rather condascending (and, in fact, leaves you feeling rather sorry for Mr. Goldwater), Mailer dismisses Goldwater and his followers as a fringe cult of sorts and basically, blames them for the death of JFK. As opposed to "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" this is not vintage Mailer and in fact, it all comes across as a little hysterical today. Still, it is an accurate reflection of the times and I think most serious students of political history will, at the very least, chuckle at Mailer's dire predictions of what a Goldwater victory would mean -- esepcially when you consider that all of those predictions came true, more or less, because Lyndon Johnson defeated Goldwater by calling him a "war mongerer" and then proceeded to plunge the country into the most wasteful war of its history.

1968 is represented by what I consider to be Mailer's finest nonfiction book "Miami and the Seige of Chicago." Its indeed fascinating to compare this book to "Superman" written just eight years earlier. Watching the violence at the Democratic convention, Mailer finds himself coming to doubt both the Democratic Party and the liberals themselves. While he is uninspired by the Republicans (and his coverage of the Republican convention is a bit dull), Mailer records in vivid detail being in the middle of the chaos in Chicago and watching as his beloved party seemed divided between spoiled trust fund kids and party hacks like LBJ who seemed determined to get everyone killed in Viet Nam. Its a dark record of events that continue to haunt us today.

The book concludes with Mailer's weakest nonfiction book -- St. George and the Godfather which covers the '72 conventions. In this book, Mailer seems bored and indeed, he admits being sick of the whole political process. He watches as the party of Kennedy nominates George McGovern (a man who made Adlai Stevenson look like JFK) and as the Republicans nominate Nixon and the apathy he feels is reflected in the prose he writes. While he engages in his usual tricks -- he shows up as a character, he rather sarcastically records the thought process of George McGovern as he considers running mates, it is obvious that Mailer is growing bored and desperately trying to pump some intensity into a book about apathy. Its an apathy that the rest of the country seemed to share and from which neither Mailer nor the nation seems to have totally recovered.

This is my first Mailer novel and i was worried that it would be boring and journalistic. But I was hugely surprised at how bizzare and subjective the imagery was - imagery which seizes upon the mind almost violently. The world of Stephen Rojack is drunken, amoral, and continually teetering between the shadowy, nightmarish underworld, and the respectable day to day world. This book in many ways does read as some awful dream, a dream in which the moon speaks to you, the ledge outside begs to be walked on as a test of courage, and murder is seen as some type of primitive, sexual release. Being somewhat sentimental I can only like a novel like this so much (I did not become attached to the characters, or want to immerse myself in the world of this novel), but that does not take away from the fact that this is a really enjoyable novel, even though I was almost relieved when I was finished. This book is like when you have an awful nightmare that keeps you up all night, and even though the nighmare terrified you, you cant help thinking about how interesting the images and mental landscape of the dream was. That being said I am definitely looking forward to more Mailer because he obviously has original talent.

Proust? James? Joyce? They're great writers but why would I want to read about lives so similar to my own? I can't lounge around in posh hotel lobbies posturing and reeking of decadent snobbery while I woo impressionable young women if I'm wasting my time reading about it! I know people who loudly renounce authors whom they have never read. I know people who feel instant self gratification upon knowing that there might be someone in the room who hasn't read DeLillo's Underworld. But I have never known anyone of any intelligence who doesn't get a kick out of Mailer. He's Jackie Collins with brass balls. An American Dream is a darkly entertaining, well-written, escapist saga. The characters are interesting and active, and the ideas are sometimes brutish, but so is life. Sure, mentioning Mailer might draw snickers from the tweed-and-elbow-patch crowd, but the porn-loving high-school senior in all of us should be allowed to have a good read once in a while!

Norman Mailer writes like a man possessed. His prose is dazzling and vivid but difficult to negotiate, consisting as it does of a torrent of words conveying so many images it's sometimes hard to follow. Its updated stream of consciousness style left me giddy and breathless, not always a pleasurable experience when you have to re-read large tracts to get the meaning. Non-American readers like me may find the colloquilism and some of the references difficult to connect with, but that limitation is mine alone. The novel's premise is fascinating. Stephen hears the moon urging him to suicide. He is tempted but hesitates, then goes home to murder his wife. Hard as nails (Mailer implies that's the only way to survive in New York City), Stephen's self protective instincts rises to the fore to help him make it through the murder investigation and the much anticipated confrontation with his father-in-law, but not without a good dose of tender loving care administered by a moll named Cherry. Naturally, Stephen escapes death yet again but guess who pays for it ? "An American Dream" is Mailer's masculine and testosterone-charged account of sex, politics, corruption and sleaze in the Big Apple. It is a highly impressive piece of work but I confess to being a little out of my depth with the lyricism which I found excessive.

Hmm. Norman Mailer has imagined himself into a fundamentalist Jew in Roman-controlled Palestine, a small-town carpenter who believes himself to be the son of God. Right away, we must believe him, as the point of view is established as first-person omniscient. Not everyone is going to enjoy a story that puts words in Christ's mouth and thoughts in His head, and that takes issue with the Gospels.

But everyone is curious about Jesus; he was, after all, a great man. Mailer seems to have read much that allows him to invest his story with details of life and culture that bring it down to earth, as it were. In spite of that, the whole tone is "spiritual": his Jesus seems to be rather a stiff. He is painfully serious, with his eyes on the Lord Above at all times. Remember, though, that he was raised in the Essenes, a very strict group of ascetic fundamentalists. Still, Mailer carries you right along, as his chapters are short and his prose rhythmic and simple. Yet you get no sense of release out of this book, no sense of joy: Christ was in the grip of a tragic necessity, as was His Father.

Anyway, this is a nice corrective to the usual universalist reading of Christ's life: he was, after all, a Jew and preaching in a contemporary tradition, though his message would undermine it. (He claimed to respect the Law, yet viewed the Sabbath as optional, for example.) He wished to talk to those influential Pharisees who controlled religious life, and who thought punctilious observance of a mass of regulations would get them into...heaven(?). His was a mystical corrective to a mechanical accounting system (reminds one of Luther, in a way). Yet finally, within two or three hundred years, his monotheistic, sin-centered message was a direct challenge to that intricate supernatural ecology that held sway, in its multitude of forms, over the known world. The Christian church, as we know, won. And, in winning lost the point, of course, which is that losing is winning. But all that is to be expected, and Mailer, who is gently blasphemous throughout (perhaps to be the more devout-who knows?) has Christ commenting on our times as if they were the worst of times, and God, his father, sore-beset. He makes no bones about the limits to God's power.

This is, to be sure, a novel, a fiction. It is a retelling of one of the great stories of our culture. Of course, Jesus here spends a fair amount of time complaining that the Gospel writers who told his story distorted it; to some, this book may seem to do the same with much less justification. I disagree. The temptation in using the life of Christ for fictional purposes is that its great symbolic power can elevate a mundane text and obscure the faults of a deficient style. Mailer is a better writer than that. To be sure, his book's entire interest grows out of his choice of protagonist, but he gives back to the story, and so to the culture at large, a real addition of meaning. He fleshes out Jesus' life with authentic homely details, and plausibly shows how the world might have looked to him. In this he is doing as a novelist no more than theologians and preachers have been doing since the Year 1. But the story is never over: it is likely that upon finishing Mailer's book one will be tempted to go back to the Gospels for another read. I know I intend to.

"Only a novelist as daring as Mailer would attempt to retell the story of Jesus in Jesus's own words. . . . Its penetration into Jesus's human heart rivals Dostoyevsky for depth and insight. Its re-creation of the world through which Jesus walked is as real as blood. Ultimately, Mailer convinces, more than any writer before him, that for Jesus the man it could have been just like this; and that is, in itself, some sort of literary miracle".

Publishers Weekly
(Quoted from the back cover of THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SON, paperback)

I cannot think of a more perfect book to read and give as gifts for the Holidays, to people of all faiths OR lack thereof.

I have heard for years that Norman Mailer's ego, with its supposedly massive size, has this way of getting in the way of his message and transcendant literary skill in everything he writes; as if there is a watermark of his opinion of himself printed on every one of his sentences that becomes visible when you hold them up to the light of day. Though that isn't my excuse for not reading any of his work before this, I can only imagine how much jealousy lay in the hearts of those who proclaim this as a caveat whenever his work hits the market and touches the surface of the universal human heart after reading THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SON. Far from attempting to completely de-spiritualize or Freudian-ize Jesus into spiritual insignificance, Norman Mailer attempts--and for me is successful--at something far more creative, courageous and important.

Mailer, with THE GOSPEL... allows for new spiritual and compassionate eyes to see the Christ, via giving the documents describing the life and Tao of Jesus in the New Testament a completely different context and perspective. He reveals the hidden dynamic of the unconscious deification of the writers of the synoptic gospels--and their writings--that not only runs centuries deep, back into the early stages of the Catholic Church, but perhaps is the genesis of the environment which necessitated the appearance of the Son of Man and his revolutionary message among the Hebrews in Jerusalem in the first place--centuries before he came. And then Mailer returns THEM, not Jesus, back into the very human, epic poet/journalist-symbols of the Ancient Near East Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul originally were; making an unconscious debate over THEIR message (as opposed to Jesus') masquerading as love of Christ, intellectual sophistication or piety--yea or nea--irrelevant. All by trying to tell Jesus's story in something of his own words.

Nietzsche has said in HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN that it is the degree to which one can display a most positive vision or illusion of ONESELF that decides and structures both the opinion we have of people, places and things in the world and the way in which we express it: the Narcissistic impulse of man's ego. Mailer's courage is in revealing this truism's agonizing power, as it may have infused the very religion to which much of Western Civilization has turned to rise above such ego-burdened ways. But his talent shows itself in how this work is nearly devoid of lambast or criticism of those caught in such paradims over the millenia and today, as it enters the loving, complex, but forgiving heart of his subject--the subject of it all. He does this by making us hear Christ; not from the point of view of people who wrote about him many decades after his death/ascenscion, but from an artistic one, a representation of the voice of Christ himself. An artistic representation so compassionate as to, in some passages, incomparably touch the heart and reawaken the soul.

The courage to attempt this would be in and of itself--even in the context of hubris--worth congratulating regardless of success. The compassion to lift oneself beyond judgement and culturally acceptable evaluation and go straight to the heart of such a profound subject, and then write a new yet familiarly compassionate view of the man/spirit, would also be laudable even if it failed to move you. And the erudition necessary to make ancient Jerusalem, Rome, Cairo, Bethlehem and Gallilee come alive alone would make it an enjoyable read, even if the subject and purpose of it all was lost and missed. Norman Mailer didn't just combine all three of these essential gifts and distill out most of the possible downsides associated with them with THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SON. I counted only about four or five times in all 200-odd pages of the book (totalling maybe ten or fifteen lines of text) where the presence of a 20th century man with his own opinions about life, religion and his own significance bled through the gentle, non-sentimental, purely magnificent poetic prose.

Norman's personal trinity of courage, compassion and erudition created this vehicle, via which he let his spirit/muse and it's Gabriel-like message for us rise above the confines of his ego. (And, again, as I've never met him, that ego may still be being overexaggerated by those in a culture that, unlike the eyes of the Christ, cannot see the many ironic forms of it's own arrogance.) As such, this book--if only for a moment (smile)-- can have you doing the same for the Holidays.

I rate this so close to five stars that I might as well call it that: a five star beautiful achievement. A masterpiece.

While I could write pages on the excellence of this book, I will simply say that from its presentation (3- to 7-page chapters) to its content, this book is entirely refreshing, enthralling and entertaining. I see very low ratings on this page and must, with a bit of confessed arrogance, say that those who did not enjoy this book were/are simpletons who expected an "important Jesus book". Mailer makes no attempt to impress us with his high intelligence quotient. On the contrary, he brings Jesus right to our heart and hearth by humanizing him in a surprisingly non-religious manner. If you were bored by the material, give Mr. Mailer a lower rating for dullness. But to generically dismiss this creative endeavor as worthless simply because it is not what was expected or because it was grossly misunderstood only reveals a low intelligence quotient. One need only compare the grammar in some of the reviews on this page to that of Mr. Mailer to understand where true brilliance lies