Since Norman Mailer done gone and died on me.
He was a misogynist. He was a short, egomaniacal fuck. He was a pain in the ass, full of himself, guilty of writing past his prime.
He was also a genius. He was smart, he was brave, he was stupid, he made mistakes, he took responsibility for them, and he made me read Harlot’s Ghost without ever writing a follow up, the shit. He broke my heart with The Executioner’s Song when I was a teenager, perplexed me with The Naked and the Dead at age 20 (so straightforward, really?), made me snicker into my shirtsleeves with Why Are We in Vietnam, which wasn’t about Vietnam at all, except that it was. I skipped out of Tough Guys Don’t Dance when it played at the Vista in Los Feliz, laughing and giddy, repeating “your — KNIFE — is — in — MY — DOG” convinced that Mailer, the writer-director, meant it to drip with camp. Everyone else was dazed, bludgeoned, bored. I might have been wrong, but I danced on the sidewalk, laughing.
I read Norman Mailer against Henry Miller, against Timothy Crouse, against Hunter S. Thompson, and Mailer came up golden. I read Jack Henry Abbot and still Mailer held up. He embarrassed himself, sure. He went gently exactly nowhere.
I don’t think he’s due respect just because he’s passed. I think he’s due respect because he kicked ass over and over again. I am sorry I never shook his hand.
