The Lives of Norman Mailer
Carl Rollyson's The Lives of Norman Mailer (Paragon House, 1991), the third book-length biography, published to coincide with Harlot's Ghost. Strong on literary analysis but, in Lennon's view, largely derivative of the Mills and Manso biographies; Mailer was not interviewed for it.
The Lives of Norman Mailer, by Carl Rollyson (Paragon House, October 1991), the third book-length biography of Mailer — after Hilary Mills’s (82.23) and Peter Manso’s (85.13) — published to appear with Harlot’s Ghost. Lennon’s register judges it to offer “more purely literary analysis — much of it very thoughtful — than his predecessors,” but “overall the book is quite derivative”: more than 55 percent of its secondary references are to the Mills and Manso biographies and Conversations with Norman Mailer (88.6), and only about five percent to Rollyson’s own interviews — though the original interviews with William Styron, John W. Aldridge, Norman Rosten, and Rust Hills are “unique and valuable.” Mailer was not interviewed for the book (see 91.38).
Related pages
- Carl Rollyson | Mailer: A Biography (Mills) | Mailer: His Life and Times (Manso)
- 1991
- Conversations with Norman Mailer (88.6)