The life and art of Norman Mailer are discussed all over the pages of Life Magazine this week by an intelligent and gifted writer. Brock Brewer, who had the sense to acknowledge even before setting out on his 12-page journey that he doesn’t know (and neither does Mailer) what in fact is the goal of Mailer’s “reckless quest.” The heavy recognition of Mailer by the editors of Life is final confirmation that he is big on the literary scene—and more: that he is big on the American scene, for two reasons that most critics do not know how to explain but, by their friendly activity in trying, go so far as to acknowledge that the Quest to Explain Norman Mailer is itself worthwhile.
And indeed it is. He is probably the single best known living American writer, only second to John Dos Passos. It doesn’t mean his books have sold as well as Erskine Caldwell’s or John Steinbeck’s, merely that far more of the people who read Mailer’s books wonder about who he is, and what he trying to get at, than ever have on reading Caldwell or Steinbeck.