71.1
Of a Fire on the Moon. Boston: Little, Brown, 11 January; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 3 September, with a different title: A Fire on the Moon. Nonfiction narrative, 472 pp., $7.95.
Dedication: “For Susan, for Dandy, for Betsey [sic] and Kate, for Michael and Stephen Mailer.” Because both the American and British editions carry a 1970 copyright date, and advance excerpts appeared in 1969 and 1970, there has been confusion about the precedence of these editions, and the actual dates of publication, which are as stated above. Nominated for the National Book Award in the sciences category. Rpt: Mailer’s three-part series in Life on the 1969 moon shot (69.81, 69.83, 70.1) was incorporated, with major revisions, into Of a Fire on the Moon; 98.7 (partial). See 69.34, 72.7.
| “ | Nonetheless, he might be in superb shape to study the flight of Apollo 11 to the moon. For he was detached this season from the imperial demands of his ego; he could think about astronauts, space, space programs, and the moon, quite free of the fact that none of these heroes, presences, and forces were by any necessity friendly to him. No, he felt like a spirit of some just-consumed essence of the past, and so finally took the liberty to christen himself Aquarius. | ” |
| — Mailer, 71.1 | ||
Bibliography
Reviews
- Bell, Pearl K. (February 8, 1971). "The Power and the Vainglory". New Leader. pp. 16–17. Negative.
- DeMott, Benjamin (January 16, 1971). "Inside Apollo 11 with Aquarius Mailer". Saturday Review. pp. 25–27, 57–58. Mixed. See 71.8.
- Dickstein, Morris (January 10, 1971). "A Trip to Inner and Outer Space". New York Times Book Review. pp. 1, 42–43, 45. Retrieved 2018-12-18. Positive.
- Poirier, Richard (January 23, 1971). "Ups and Downs of Mailer". New Republic. pp. 23–26. Mixed. Rpt: Braudy (1972); partial in Poirier (1972).
- Sisk, John P. (May 1971). "Aquarius Rising". Commentary. pp. 83–84. Positive.
Essays
- DePolo, Nicole (2012). "A Philosophical Launch: Of a Fire on the Moon Ignites into Moonfire". Mailer Review. 6: 275–287.
- Glenday, Michael (2015). "Fly Boys and Angels: Mailer on the Moon". Mailer Review. 9: 119–132.
- Kernan, Alvin B. (1982). "The Taking of the Moon: The Struggle of the Poetic and Scientific Myth in Norman Mailer's Of a Fire on the Moon". The Imaginary Library: An Essay on Literature and Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 130–161. Rpt: Bloom (1986).
- McCann, Colum (2010). "Introduction". In Lennon, J. Michael. Norman Mailer’s Moonfire: The Epic Journey of Apollo. Los Angeles: Taschen. pp. 11–16.
