Norman Mailer: Works and Days/Bibliography/Criticism

Overview

First Editions

Key Critical Texts

Bibliographies

Biographies

Criticism

Cultural Backgrounds

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WD:Crit

A

• Adams, Laura (1976). Existential Battles: The Growth of Norman Mailer. Athens: Ohio University Press. Good discussion of themes and techniques, especially early narrators; includes description of extra-literary activities.
• —, ed. (1974). Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press. Fourteen essays and reviews and one interview examining Mailer’s protean activities. Includes two essays on Mailer’s cosmology, a long bibliography and Adams’s useful introduction.
• Aldridge, John W. (1992). Classics and Contemporaries. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. pp. 54–58. Contains Aldridge’s reviews of Genius and Lust (76.12), The Long Patrol (71.29), and Harlot’s Ghost (91.26).
• — (1985) [1951]. "Mailer, Burns, and Shaw". After the Lost Generation: A Study of the Writers of Two Wars. New York: Arbor House. pp. 133–156. Reprint, with an introduction by Norman Mailer. In his introduction Mailer says, “Aldridge was the nearest guideline to absolute truth that the working novelist had in my young days.” See 85.14.
• Algren, Nelson (1963). "New York: Rapietta Greensponge, Girl Counselor Comes to My Aid". Who Lost An American. New York: Macmillan. pp. 1–29. Satirical portrait of Mailer (Norman Manlifellow) and James Baldwin (Giovanni Johnson) and other New York literary figures. See 63.10.
• Amis, Martin (1987). "The Avenger and the Bitch". The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America. New York: Viking. pp. 37–43. See 86.42.
• Anderson, Chris (1987). "Norman Mailer: The Record of a War". Style as Argument: Contemporary American Nonfiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 82–132. Concrete reading of Mailer’s “rhetoric of self-dramatization,” with deft discussion of Mailer’s “Left-conservatism.”
• Apple, Max (1976). "Inside Norman Mailer". The Oranging of America and Other Stories. New York: Grossman. pp. 49–60. One of the best comic fantasy struggles with a larger-than-life Mailer.
• Arlett, Robert M. (1987). "The Veiled Fist of a Master Executioner". Criticism. 29 (2): 215–2232. xamination of free indirect speech in The Executioner’s Song (79.14).

B

• Bailey, Jennifer (1979). Norman Mailer: Quick-Change Artist. New York: Harper and Row. Provides extended summaries of his work from a feminist perspective. Bailey sees Advertisements for Myself (59.13) as the key transitional work.
• Bloom, Harold, ed. (1986). Norman Mailer: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House. Sixteen reviews and essays covering Mailer’s major works and emphasizing the influence of Hemingway, with Bloom’s brief introduction.
• Braudy, Leo (1991). "Maidstone: A Mystery by Norman Mailer". Native Informant: Essays on Film, Fiction and Popular Culture. New York: Oxford. pp. 60–63, 145–151. Rpt: Adams (1974). Informed comment on Mailer’s film and the Mailer-Pynchon dichotomy.
• —, ed. (1972). Norman Mailer: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Thirteen essays on Mailer’s work through Of a Fire on the Moon (71.1); includes Steven Marcus interview (64.1) and a thoughtful introduction with useful insights into Miami and the Siege of Chicago (68.25).

L

• Lennon, J. Michael, ed. (1986). Critical Essays on Norman Mailer. Critical Essays on American Literature. Boston: G. K. Hall. Ten reviews and ten essays, including two original ones: Robert F. Lucid’s overview of his proposed biography and Michael Cowan’s on Mailer’s Americanness. Introduction summarizes critical response to Mailer’s work.
• Lucid, Robert F., ed. (1971). Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work. Boston: Little, Brown. First major collection of essays: 13 on his work, four on his life and Paul Carroll’s interview (68.1). Contains checklist of his work and important introduction in which Lucid attempts to resolve the apparent conflict between Mailer’s public and artistic activities.