"Norman Mailer is "our chronicler, our critic, our designated male chauvinist, our court jester, our devil's advocate, the thorn in our collective side," writes Mary V. Dearborn. Undeniably one of the most controversial figures of the past half-century, Mailer has also been one of the most influential. Twice a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, once a candidate for mayor of New York City, a best-selling author at age twenty-three with The Naked and the Dead, a founder of the Village Voice, he has both made the news and commented on it with an originality that has permanently altered America's literary landscape."--BOOK JACKET. "Inevitably, Mailer's personal life has been as volcanic as the issues he has confronted. Dearborn had unprecedented access to Mailer's friends, relations, and antagonists, who provided key insights to fill in the familiar outlines of the Mailer myth - the brawls and arrests, the wives and mistresses, the brilliant successes and notorious failures."--BOOK JACKET. "As the biographer of both Henry Miller (one of Mailer's heroes) and the radical journalist Louise Bryant, Dearborn is uniquely sensitive to Mailer's best and worst sides."--Jacket.