71.20

The Prisoner of Sex. Boston: Little, Brown, 27 May; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, August. Essay, 240 pp., $5.95.

Only the first U.S. edition carries the price on the inside front dustwrapper flap. Dedication: “To Carol Stevens.” Nominated for the National Book Award in the arts and letters category. Contains Mailer’s most thoughtful literary criticism, an exploration of the writing of D.H. Lawrence. Rpt: Entire essay first appeared in Harper’s (71.10), and was revised for book publication; 98.7 (partial). See 68.11, 71.16–71.19, 71.23, 71.27, 77.14.

“ Since PW [prizewinner] could also stand for Prisoner of War (which he could amend to Prisoner of Wedlock, for he had never been able to live without a woman) he had another name for himself, the PW, Prisoner or Prizewinner? They were polar concepts to be regarded at opposite ends of his ego—so they provided a base for his reactions whenever that equivalent of a phallus, that ghost-phallus of the mentality, firm strong-tongued ego, had wandered into unfamiliar scenes. After a time he thought of himself as the Prisoner. ” — Mailer, 71.20

Rpt: Partially in 98.7, 13.1.

• 

Bibliography

Reviews

• Brophy, Brigid (May 23, 1971). "Meditations on Norman Mailer, by Norman Mailer, against the Day a Norman Mailest Comes Along". New York Times Book Review. pp. 1, 14, 16. Retrieved 2018-12-18. Negative. See 71.22
• Broyard, Anatole (May 27, 1971). "Norman Writes a Dithyramb" (PDF). New York Times. p. 37. Retrieved 2018-12-18. Positive.
• Kennedy, Eugene (November 1971). "Review of The Prisoner of Sex". Critic. pp. 69–73. Positive.
• Lodge, David (December 1971). "Male, Mailer, Female". New Blackfriars. London. pp. 558–561. Mixed.
• Oates, Joyce Carol (July 1971). "With Norman Mailer at the Sex Circus I: Out of the Machine". Atlantic. pp. 42–45. Mixed. Rpt: Adams (1974), Bloom (1986).
• Pritchett, V. S. (July 1971). "With Norman Mailer at the Sex Circus II: Into the Cage". Atlantic. pp. 40–42. Positive.

Essays

• Bailey, Jennifer (1971). "'Faceless Broads' and 'Angels of Sex'". Norman Mailer: Quick-Change Artist. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 129–143.
• Begiebing, Robert (2016). "Sex Prisoner, 2016". Mailer Review. 10: 93–98.
• Broer, Lawrence R. (2014). "The Existential Sublime: Mailer's The Prisoner of Sex". Mailer Review. 8: 125–139.
• Gornick, Vivian (December 6, 1976). "Why Do Men Hate Women: American Novelists and Misogyny". Village Voice. pp. 12–13, 15.
• Greer, Germaine (September 1, 1971). "My Mailer Problem". Esquire. pp. 90–93, 214, 216. Retrieved 2018-12-18. Mixed. Rpt: Bloom (1986).
• Hamill, Pete (1985). "Introduction". The Prisoner of Sex. New York: Plume.
• Millett, Kate (2000) [1970]. Sexual Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 314–335.
• Mitchell, Juliet (171). "Mailer: 'So the revolution called again…'". Modern Occasions. 1 (fall): 611–618.
• Schwenger, Peter (1984). Phallic Critiques: Masculinity and Twentieth Century Literature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 24–36, 103–107.
• Trilling, Diana (1977). "The Prisoner of Sex". We Must March My Darlings: A Critical Decade. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. pp. 199–210. Rpt: Lennon (1986).