Can a writer's life serve as a mirror for an entire country? This is the first biography to examine Norman Mailer from a unique perspective, offering a revealing look at American history from the end of World War II to the election of Barack Obama. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner -- in 1969 for *The Armies of the Night* and in 1980 for *The Executioner's Song* -- Mailer's life comes closer than few others to the idea of the Great American Novel: excessive, contradictory, fascinating, and deeply addictive. The Naked and the Dead not only established him as a master but also paved the way for a new way of narrating war with raw realism, without which works like Catch-22 or MASH would be hard to imagine. In this biography, Richard Bradford explores Mailer's personal letters -- addressed to lovers and editors -- where the writer he would become is already taking shape: provocative, egocentric, and perpetually at odds. Drawing on diaries, notebooks, and newspaper articles, Bradford constructs a relentless portrait of a figure as brilliant as he was controversial. From his relationships with contemporaries like James Baldwin, his tense exchanges with Hemingway or the Kennedys, to his harsh -- yet often accurate -- criticisms of figures such as William Faulkner or Eleanor Roosevelt, this book offers a lively, incisive, and deeply revealing look at one of the great writers of the 20th century. "Compelling [...] Bradford draws on a myriad of sources to construct an indelible portrait of the artist as a fascinating man, incapable of boring anyone." Booklist "... the very existence of the book points to a more complex reality. It would be naive to assume that the renewed interest in Mailer has nothing to do with the scandals associated with his name. It would also be naive to deny that he was a great American writer." The New Yorker "... if this vibrant biography ends up becoming a damning indictment, what can you do: the combative old Norman is merely getting a taste of his own medicine. One can almost imagine Mailer's ghost rising, full of energy, from his sulfurous grave to knock Bradford out." The Times