Norman Mailer

1923 (Long Branch, N.J.) – 2007 (New York)

Algren invited Mailer to sit in on a writing class, while Calder brought him to a pioneering writers’ conference in Edinburgh. Leone asked him to write a screenplay but concluded he wasn’t a cinematic writer. He got Trocchi false papers so he could re-enter Britain. Vidal claimed he hit him with his fist: Mailer said it was a tumbler of ice (they continued to get along, though with bouts of bad blood). He met Moore at a boxing-match, and joined Lowell to march against the Vietnam war. Probably the strongest and fondest of his literary friendships was with Baldwin, written about by Baldwin in a notable essay.