Forty years ago, at the tender age of 17, I found in the book rack at Reade’s drug store on Belair Road in Baltimore–improbably enough–a copy of Managing Mailer, an account of Norman Mailer 1969 campaign to become mayor of New York, written by his manager Joe Flaherty. As I have previously written, this book …
Thanks to the Columbia Journalism Review for publishing my little tribute to Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their campaign for Mayor and City Council President of New York, and to Joe Flaherty, whose memoir of the campaign Managing Mailer, was one of the funniest things I ever …
I don’t think Norman Mailer made me want to be a writer, but I know Norman Mailer made me think being a writer could be exciting. My parents subscribed to Life and Time and Newsweek, and Mailer was a fixture in their pages, as a subject and contributor (it’s hard to imagine Time and Newsweek …