1997
Mailer publishes The Gospel According to the Son, his novel narrated in the first person by Jesus, on 2 May — Random House serialized the whole of it in the New York Daily News first — and spends the year defending it on a long American and British tour against sharply divided reviews. He announces a 1,500-page career retrospective for his 75th birthday (The Time of Our Time, 1998), gives a major political interview to Christopher Hitchens, and pays tribute to the late Allen Ginsberg.
The Gospel According to the Son
The year belonged to The Gospel According to the Son (97.13), Mailer’s novel narrated in the first person by Jesus, which Random House published on 2 May — after serializing the whole of it across nineteen parts in the (New York) Daily News (97.5, 97.6). First announced in February (97.2), it drew a wave of advance excerpts (97.6, 97.8, 97.9) and the year’s “first and best” interview, Sean Abbott’s “Mailer Goes to the Mountain” (97.3). The reviews split between admirers (Updike, Kermode, Price) and detractors (Kakutani, Gray, Moore, Gelernter), and Mailer answered them across a months-long American tour through the spring (97.5–97.22) and a British leg in September (97.22–97.23e), insisting that he did not “think of myself as Jesus Christ” (97.7) and that the Jesus story was “the keel of western civilization” (97.17). His ex-wife Adele’s memoir The Last Party (97.11) appeared at the same moment, to his displeasure (97.23c).
Politics, tributes, and a retrospective announced
Between Gospel events, Mailer gave Christopher Hitchens a searching political interview for the New Left Review, “A Minority of One” (97.2b); contributed a tribute to the late Allen Ginsberg (97.19a); and sat for Sean Abbott’s omnibus “Norman Mailer on Literary Instincts and Ambitions” (97.24a). The Gospel coverage also carried the announcement that Random House would mark his 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of The Naked and the Dead in 1998 with a 1,500-page retrospective — The Time of Our Time (98.7) (97.7, 97.23).
Related pages
- 1996 | 1998
- The Gospel According to the Son (97.13) | Christopher Hitchens
- Courage in Profiles: Attacked by Critics for His Hubris, Norman Mailer Nonetheless Tackles the Tough Topics (97.17) | Norman Mailer on Literary Instincts and Ambitions (97.24a) | The Time of Our Time (98.7) | Mailer Retells the Greatest Story Ever (97.23)