Showing results for "The Normans" in Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

"Writing is spooky," according to Norman Mailer. "There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words." In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the listener in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and detailed observations about the writer's craft.

In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible "professor of boxing." The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity.

"Questions are posed," writes Norman Mailer, "in the hope they will open into richer insights, which in turn will bring forth sharper questions." In this series of conversations, John Buffalo Mailer, 27, poses a series of questions to his father, challenging the reflections and insights of the man who has dominated and defined much of American letters for the past sixty years.