A Disturbance of the Peace
Anatole Broyard's hostile New York Times Book Review notice of Why Are We in Vietnam? (17 September 1967), judging it 'a third-rate work of art, but a first-rate outrage to our sensibilities' in which 'Mailer, disk jockey to the world, gets the nod over Mailer, the novelist.' Full text held (rights pending).
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
Anatole Broyard. “A Disturbance of the Peace.” The New York Times Book Review, 17 September 1967, pp. 4–5.
A sharply negative review of Why Are We in Vietnam? — Broyard finds Mailer’s career “a brawl between his talent and his exhibitionism,” dismisses the “spontaneous” prose, and reduces the novel’s argument to a hyped-up frustration-aggression theory. His verdict: “a third-rate work of art, but a first-rate outrage to our sensibilities.” Full text on the full-text page (rights pending).