Robert J. Begiebing

Novelist and Mailer scholar; author of Norman Mailer at 100: Conversations, Correlations, Confrontations (LSU Press, 2022), winner of the Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies. He interviewed Mailer for Harvard Magazine in 1983.

Robert J. Begiebing is a novelist and Mailer scholar. He interviewed Mailer for Harvard Magazine in 1983 — a wide-ranging conversation covering Mailer’s Brooklyn boyhood, his Harvard years, the Army, and the composition of Ancient Evenings — which he later reprinted as a chapter of Norman Mailer at 100 (2022). His earlier criticism includes the study Acts of Regeneration: Allegory and Archetype in the Works of Norman Mailer (1980); a fuller, separately sourced account of his fiction and scholarship is a backlog item.

Within the current generation of Mailer studies he recurs alongside other contributors to this project’s secondary holdings: he contributed a jacket note to J. Michael Lennon‘s Mailer’s Last Days (2022), and his Norman Mailer at 100 won the prize named for Robert F. Lucid.

In The Mailer Review

Listed by volume, with the contributor’s note as the journal printed it; the note is repeated only where its wording changed. Search the journal for all of them.

Vol. 1 (2007)

• “Castle Mailer,” 1 (2007): 215 — 2007 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing, author of over twenty articles and six books, directs the Low-Residency MFA at Southern NH University, where he has won three awards for excellence in teaching. His books include two on Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction in 2003. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Lila Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts.

Vol. 2 (2008)

• “Mailer on the Eve of Ancient Evenings: A Memory in Six Parts,” 2 (2008): 69 — 2008 bibliography · article
• “Dialogue on Mailer’s Novels” (with Philip Bufithis), 2 (2008): 225 — 2008 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is the author of over twenty articles and six books. He directs the Low-Residency MFA at Southern NH University, where he has won three awards for excellence in teaching. His books include two on Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction in 2003. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Lila-Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts.

Vol. 3 (2009)

• “Norman Mailer: The Magician as Tragic Hero,” 3 (2009): 616 — 2009 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is the author of over thirty articles and six books. He directs the Low-Residency MFA at Southern NH University, where he has won three awards for excellence in teaching. His books include two on Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction in 2003. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Lila-Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts.

Vol. 4 (2010)

• “Ernest and Norman: A Dialogue in Two Acts,” 4 (2010): 39 — 2010 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is the author of over thirty articles and stories and six books. He directs the Low-Residency MFA at Southern NH University, where he has won three awards for excellence in teaching. His books include two on Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction in 2003. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Lila-Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts.

Vol. 6 (2012)

• “Why Mailer and Jones Matter” (with Ray Elliott, J. Michael Lennon, Warren Mason), 6.1 (2012): 28 — 2012 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is the author of seven books, a play, and thirty articles and stories. His books include two studies of Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels spanning 1648–1850. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction. The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin was chosen as a Main Selection for the Mystery and Literary Guild Book Clubs. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. In 2007, Governor John Lynch appointed Begiebing to the Council for the Arts. In 2009 he served both as one of the inaugural faculty members at the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony and as finalist judge for the Langum Prize. He is Professor Emeritus and founding director of the Low-Residency MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction at Southern NH University.

Vol. 7 (2013)

• “Toward a New Synthesis,” 7.1 (2013): 295 — 2013 bibliography · article
• “Provocateur-in-Chief,” 7.1 (2013): 402 — 2013 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is the author of seven books, a play, and thirty articles and stories. His books include two studies of Norman Mailer and a trilogy of novels spanning 1648–1850. His novel Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction won the Langum Prize for historical fiction. The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin was chosen as a Main Selection for the Mystery and Literary Guild Book Clubs. His fiction writing has been supported by grants from the Lila-Wallace Foundation and the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. In 2007, Governor John Lynch appointed Begiebing to the Council for the Arts. In 2009 he served both as one of the inaugural faculty members at the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony and as finalist judge for the Langum Prize. He is Professor Emeritus and founding director of the Low-Residency MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction at Southern NH University.

Vol. 9 (2015)

• “Better than Happiness,” 9.1 (2015): 297 — 2015 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University and the author of nine books (including criticism, fiction, and nonfiction) and many articles. His most recent book, “The Territory Around Us: Literary and Political Journalism, 1982–2015,” will be published in the fall of 2015. He is on the board of the Norman Mailer Society.

Vol. 10 (2016)

• “Sex Prison, 2016,” 10.1 (2016): 93 — 2016 bibliography · article

Robert J. Begiebing is Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University and the author of nine books (including criticism, fiction, and nonfiction) and many articles. His most recent book, The Territory Around Us: Literary and Political Journalism, 1982 –2015, was published in 2015. He is on the board of the Norman Mailer Society.

Vol. 11 (2017)

• “Memory of Andy Gordon,” 11.1 (2017): 254 — 2017 bibliography · article
• “Where Is Norman Mailer When We Need Him?,” 11.1 (2017): 255 — 2017 bibliography · article
• “Mailer Expunged; Mailer Restored,” 11.1 (2017): 265 — 2017 bibliography · article
• “Convict Doppelgangers,” 11.1 (2017): 269 — 2017 bibliography · article

Contributor’s note as in vol. 10.

Vol. 12 (2018)

• “Lipton’s Journal: Mailer’s Quest for Wholeness and Renewal,” 12.1 (2018): 51 — 2018 bibliography · article
• “Soul Bootlegger,” 12.1 (2018): 260 — 2018 bibliography · article
• “Our Wounded Giant: Works and Days,” 12.1 (2018): 264 — 2018 bibliography · article

Contributor’s note as in vol. 10.

Vol. 13 (2019)

• “Norman Mailer and Joseph Ellis: Unsettling Dialogues on Democracy,” 13.1 (2019): 85 — 2019 bibliography · article
• “Addendum to Lipton’s Journal,” 13.1 (2019): 162 — 2019 bibliography · article

Contributor’s note as in vol. 10.

Vol. 14 (2020)

• “Mailer and Emerson: Lipton’s Journal and the Dissident Soul,” 14.1 (2020): 84 — 2020 bibliography · article
• “Chris Busa: A Welcoming Friend,” 14.1 (2020): 233 — 2020 bibliography · article

Contributor’s note as in vol. 10.

Vol. 15 (2021)

• “Mailer and Whitman: An Interview on Democracy in America,” 15.1 (2021): 38 — 2021 bibliography · article
• “Obey Little, Resist Much: Whitman’s Fight for Democracy,” 15.1 (2021): 270 — 2021 bibliography · article

Contributor’s note as in vol. 10.

Vol. 16 (2026) — forthcoming

• “Lipton’s Journal: Mailer’s Quest for Wholeness and Renewal,” 16.1 (2026): 45 — forthcoming

Robert J. Begiebing, Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University, is the author of eleven books, including fiction, criticism, memoir, collected journalism, and poetry. His fiction has been supported by the NH Council on the Arts, the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction, and by a Wallace Foundation Research Fellowship. In 2023, he received the Robert F. Lucid Award for Norman Mailer at 100.

Vol. 17 (2027) — forthcoming

• “Freak Show,” 17.1 (2027) — forthcoming
• “From CIA to Hitler: Mailer’s Unfinished Sequels” (with Mike Lennon), 17.1 (2027) — forthcoming

Contributor’s note as in vol. 16.

Related pages

• Norman Mailer at 100: Conversations, Correlations, Confrontations | Mailer's Last Days: New and Selected Remembrances of a Life in Literature | Robert F. Lucid | Norman Mailer Society
• The Blood of the Blunt (12.1) | The Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays of Norman Mailer (13.1) | La Petite Bourgeoise (14.1) | The Thalian Adventure (15.1) | The Fight (Taschen edition) (16.1)

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Last updated: 2026-10-24