Norman Mailer, Ex Libris Gore Vidal
[Ex Libris Gore Vidal] Poirier, Richard. Norman Mailer. First Edition. 1972. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition—jacket shows mild fraying to the upper spine. Book is stamped “From the library of GORE VIDAL” on the flyleaf.
This critical appraisal of Norman Mailer was part of the Fontana Modern Masters series on writers, philosophers, and other intellectuals of the 20th Century. It is a small book—less than two hundred pages—but it nevertheless captures Mailer’s personality and intellect. Mailer was an occasional nemesis (in modern parlance, “frenemy”) of Gore Vidal to whom this copy belonged. Mailer once encountered Vidal at a party and punched him as retribution for a bad book review. They also publicly quarreled on the Dick Cavett Show, which was famously broken up Janet Flanner, the third guest, who scolded, in frustration, “You’re boring me!”
“My first reaction to The Naked and the Dead was: it’s a fake. A clever, talented, admirably executed fake. I have not changed my opinion of the book since, though I have considerably changed my opinion of Mailer, as he himself has changed.”
--Gore Vidal