Library Journal? 11/01/2013
Lennon is an old friend of American writer Norman Mailer (1927–2007), who lived near the author during his final years in Provincetown, MA, and who worked on several projects with him, including On God: An Uncommon Conversation (2007) and Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988). This biography has Mailer's blessing, and Lennon has taken Mailer's advice—"put everything in"—to heart. Drawing on more than 45,000 letters, conversations with Mailer himself, and interviews with family, friends, and lovers, Lennon presents an exhaustive, fascinating, and fair-minded account of his subject's life and work. He portrays Mailer as a dual-natured personality: a passive observer and an activist, a family man and a philanderer, a generous friend and someone who could hold a grudge, and a man at home with presidents and prizefighters.
