[Deathwatch] Norman Mailer, author, 84

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Author Norman Mailer dies aged 84

By Toni Clarke

Norman Mailer, the pugnacious two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was a
dominating presence on the U.S. literary scene across seven decades,
died on Saturday of kidney failure, his family said. He was 84.

Known for his biting prose, penchant for controversy and as an
antagonist of the feminist movement, Mailer had struggled with his
health for months, undergoing lung surgery in October and spending five
days in a Boston hospital in September.

"With great sorrow, the family of Norman Mailer announces his passing
on November 10, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City," the statement
said.

In more than 40 books and a torrent of essays, Mailer provoked and
enraged readers with his strident views on U.S. political life and the
wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

Mailer's first book, "The Naked and the Dead," is considered one of the
finest novels about World War Two and made him a celebrity at age 25
when published in 1948.

"From one end of his life to the other he sat in solemn thought and
left so much to read, so many pages with ideas that come at you like
sparks spitting from a fire," said columnist and author Jimmy Breslin.

In 1969, Mailer waded into politics with a run for New York mayor, with
Breslin running for city council president.

"He argued brilliantly for the absolute necessity of the minds of
whites and blacks growing by being in the same city school classrooms,"
said Breslin.

Mailer's works were often filled with violence, sexual obsession and
views that angered feminists. He later reconsidered many of his old
positions but never surrendered his right to speak his mind.

"I found him to be extremely kind and gentle," best-selling novelist
Luanne Rice, a friend of Mailer, told Reuters in an interview. "The
Norman Mailer that I knew was very different from the angry,
contentious man that was famous."

Rice, now 52, was just starting out as a writer when she met Mailer in
the late-1980s. He invited her to join him for a drink, they talked,
and over the years she said he became a mentor and father figure to the
budding writer.

FEUDED WITH FELLOW AUTHORS

Detractors considered him an intellectual bully and he feuded with
fellow authors like Truman Capote, William Styron, Tom Wolfe and Norman
Podhoretz.

Feminists like Germaine Greer and Kate Millett considered him the
quintessential male chauvinist pig.

Some of the feuds even turned physical for the former college boxer,
who stabbed one of his six wives at a party and also decked writer Gore
Vidal.

Mailer lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and had an apartment in
Brooklyn, New York. In Provincetown, he was known as a generous public
figure in his later years who loved to play poker and often held games
at his Provincetown home.

He is survived by his wife Norris Church Mailer, and nine children, the
family said. His son Stephen was at his side when he died at 4:30 a.m.

They planned a private service and interment to be announced next week,
and a memorial service in New York in coming months.

"He was a towering figure who wrote some of the best journalism in the
English language, especially in the '60s and '70s," said Peter Manso, a
Mailer biographer. 

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary