After almost fifty years as a literary celebrity and a prolific writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Norman Mailer still defies critics and scholars to define his niche as a writer. Some interpreters periodically attempt to characterize him as "representative of his time," even as his timely work stretches from World War II through the Cold War and Vietnam to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Something in Mailer's work can be identified with each of these eras, with the latest connection involving Mailer's traveling to Russia to gather facts from the KGB for Oswald's Tale (1995), his investigation of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Mailer's output totals more than three dozen books and collections, and his artistic involvement with his time promises to reach into the next century. Long recognized as a major figure in the American literary landscape, he continues, nevertheless, to write books that elicit contradictory...