75.12

The Fight. Boston: Little, Brown, 21 July; London: Hart-Davis, 1976. Nonfiction narrative on the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman 30 October 1974 boxing match in Zaire, 239 pp., $7.95.

No dedication. Rpt: An earlier, shorter version of the narrative appeared in two parts in Playboy (75.8, 75.9). Mailer includes excerpts from eight chapters in The Time of Our Time (98.7). See 64.18, 67.12, 71.15, 71.26, 75.13, 77.13.

“ Now our Man of wisdom had a vice. He wrote about himself. Not only would he describe the events he saw, but his own small effect on events. This irritated critics. They spoke of ego trips and the unattractive dimensions of his narcissism. Such criticism did not hurt too much. He had already had a love affair with himself, and it used up a good deal of love. He was no longer pleased with his presence. His daily reactions bored him. They were becoming like everyone else’s. His mind, he noticed, was beginning to spin its wheels…. ” — Mailer, 75.12

• 

  Cover of the first edition.

Bibliography

Reviews

• Boyer, Brian D. (July 27, 1975). "Norman Mailer's Great White Hope Is Still Himself". Chicago Tribune. Sec. 7, 3. Negative.
• Higgins, George V. (August 3, 1975). "Another View of Foreman-Ali". Boston Globe. Sec. A. p. 15. Positive.
• Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (July 14, 1975). "Mailer on Ali and Forman". New York Times. p. 23. Mixed.
• Scannell, Vernon (July 30, 1976). "Three-Cornered Ring". Times Literary Supplement. p. 948. Mixed.
• Sheppard, R. Z. (July 21, 1975). "Jaws". Time. pp. 62–63. Mixed.
• Wood, Michael (July 27, 1975). "Mohammad Ali versus George Foreman via Norman Mailer". New York Times Book Review. pp. 1–2. Positive.

Essays

• Boddy, Kasia (2010). "Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing". Mailer Review. 4: 139–158.
• Cirino, Mark (2010). "Norman Mailer's The Fight: Hemingway, Bullfighting, and the Lovely Metaphysics of Boxing". Mailer Review. 4: 123–138.
• Collins, Michael (2013). "Ali Even Motivates the Dead". PMLA. 128 (summer): 322–336.
• Fried, Ron (2013). "Mailer's Boxing Journalism". Mailer Review. 7: 222–230.
• Fuchs, Jean Thomas (2014). "Mailer and Ali: Existential Affinities". Mailer Review. 8: 177–185.
• Lennon, J. Michael (2016). "Introduction: A Meeting of Giants". In Lennon, J. Michael. Mailer/Bingham/Leifer: The Fight. Los Angeles: Taschen. Conceived by Lawrence Schiller, photographs by Neil Leifer and Howard M. Bingham, Art Direction, Nina Wiener. Abridged, oversized, illustrated volume.
• Lounsberry, Barbara (1990). The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction. New York: Greenwood Press. pp. 174–180.
• Lowenburg, Bill (2010). "Hooking Off the Jab: Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway and Boxing". Mailer Review. 4: 105–122.
• Plimpton, George (1990). "Hunter Thompson and Norman Mailer". The Best of Plimpton. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 117–130.