Norman Mailer: Works and Days

Preface to A Driving Passion

Mailer's preface to the late Marco Vassi's A Driving Passion (Permanent Press, 1992) — both an introduction to Vassi's philosophy of 'Metasex' and a eulogy for the writer, who died of AIDS.

Read the full text

Mailer’s preface to A Driving Passion by the late Marco Vassi (The Permanent Press, November 1992, 9–12) — at once an introduction to Vassi’s work and a eulogy for the erotic writer and philosopher of “Metasex,” who had died of AIDS in 1989. Mailer places Vassi among the “pioneer” philosophers “who develop their philosophy from the journeys of their life,” and closes on a characteristic aphorism: “Philosophers are the first of the species to die of a broken heart, and Marco Vassi proves the case.”

A full transcription is at full text.

First published: 1992-11
Form: essay
Lennon & Lennon: 92.11
Cite as: /works/1992-11-preface-driving-passion-vassi
Last updated: 2026-06-06