85.13

Interviews by Peter Manso. In Mailer: His Life and Times, by Peter Manso, passim. New York: Simon and Schuster. Second book-length (oral) biography of Mailer. Contains original interviews with Mailer, his family, friends and acquaintances; a total of 151 individuals are identified in the “Contributors” section, many of them never interviewed before or since. Includes a partial Mailer family tree, excerpts from reviews of many Mailer books and some of his letters to Francis Irby “Fig” Gwaltney, a detailed index and scores of photographs from all periods of Mailer’s life. The brunt of the book is the wide range and number of utterances on Mailer’s life; its weakness is the paucity of editorial synthesis and perspective. Mailer’s work is scanted in favor of his life.

•