SOURCE: "Norman Mailer," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 9, 1975, pp. 174-82.

In the following essay, Fishman discusses Mailer's three-fold persona as public celebrity, social critic, and American writer in relation to his experiments with the New Journalism genre. As Fishman asserts, this "new form accentuates the strengths of each of the personae so that the whole is unquestionably greater than the sum of the parts."

Why does he [Mailer] have to push himself forward all the time and make such a spectacle of himself … why can't he let his work speak for itself?

                             —Flannery O'Connor

Norman Mailer's public career presents an ever-changing face. His latest works fall conveniently into neither fiction, literary criticism, nor political commentary. His diversions into politics and political campaigning as well as film making have only added to the confusion of those critics who attempt to categorize and dissect his interests. Yet, the fact...