The Prisoner of Sex

Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1948
Born	Norman Kingsley Mailer (1923-01-31)January 31, 1923 Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	November 10, 2007(2007-11-10) (aged 84) New York City, U.S.
Pen name	Andreas Wilson
Occupation	Novelist, essayist, journalist, columnist, poet, playwright
Nationality	American
Spouses	Beatrice Silverman (m. 1944; div. 1952) Adele Morales (m. 1954; div. 1962) Jeanne Campbell (m. 1962; div. 1963) Beverly Bentley (m. 1963; div. 1980) Carol Stevens (m. 1980; div. 1980) Barbara Davis (m. 1980)
Children	9, including Kate, Michael, Stephen, and John
Signature

Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and liberal political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948 and brought him renown. His best-known work is widely considered to be The Executioner's Song (1979) winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Armies of the Night won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and the National Book Award.

Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, which uses the style and devices of literary fiction in fact-based journalism. Mailer was also known for his essays, the most famous and reprinted of which is "The White Negro". He was a cultural commentator and critic, expressing his views through his novels, journalism, essays, and frequent media appearances. In 1955, Mailer and three others founded The Village Voice, an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper distributed in Greenwich Village. In 1969 he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the mayor of New York.

While principally known as a novelist and journalist, Mailer was not afraid to bend genres and venture outside his comfort zone; he lived a life that seemed to embody an idea that echoes throughout his work: "There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same."

Mailer was born to a Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey on January 31, 1923. His father, Isaac Barnett Mailer, was an accountant born in South Africa, and his mother, Fanny (née Schneider), ran a housekeeping and nursing agency. Mailer's sister, Barbara, was born in 1927.