Louis Menand summarizes Norman Mailer.
He says that Mailer literally made "himself a character in his nonfiction writing." This showed us that "a book is written by a human being, someone with professional ambitions, financial needs, tastes and distastes, and this human being is part of the story whether he or she appears in the story or not." Pointing out that Mailer never hid from his many failures, but lived them out in his chosen public arena, Menand says "Not many...have been so brave with themselves."
Sounds like he would have made a hell of a blogger. Maybe he was born too soon.
