Norman Kingsley Mailer (born 1923), American author, film producer and director, wrote one of the most noteworthy American novels about World War II. Only in his later political journalism did he reach that level of achievement again.

Norman Mailer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, on January 31, 1923. The family soon moved to Brooklyn. Mailer graduated from high school in 1939 and earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from Harvard University. He won a college fiction contest, wrote for the Harvard Advocate, worked on two ambitious (unpublished) novels, and contributed a novella to an anthology. Drafted into the Army in 1944, he served in the Philippines in an infantry regiment, as both intelligence clerk and combat reconnaissance rifleman.

In the Army, Mailer knew he was living the material for his third novel. From notes in letters to his wife, he fashioned a brilliant narrative around an Army platoon's...