Jackson R. Bryer, remembrance
Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100, ed. Gerald R. Lucas and Maggie McKinley (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), p. 13; transcribed from the final interior PDF
From Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100 (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), p. 13.
Of the numerous occasions on which I encountered Norman Mailer during the last two decades or so of his life, the one that I remember most vividly occurred at a Mailer Conference in Provincetown, when we all gathered at the new theater in town to hear readings from Norman’s non-fiction writing. As I sat listening to the excerpts from, among others, The Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Of a Fire on the Moon, King of the Hill, Advertisements for Myself, The Presidential Papers, Pieces and Pontifications, and The Time of Our Time, I recall thinking that, despite his justified reputation as a major American fiction writer of the second half of the twentieth century, Mailer’s greatest contribution to this country’s literary landscape may well be in the eloquence, clarity, and sheer expressiveness of these accounts of what it was like to experience major events and to encounter memorable figures in our country’s history of this period. Hearing his words spoken aloud — others will remember exactly what was read and by whom — gave me a renewed appreciation of the magic he could work simply with his grasp of the possibilities of the English language and of his ability to capture moments and personalities so clearly and acutely.
Jackson R. Bryer