I was never much of a Norman Mailer fan. I read The Naked and the Dead as a teenager (my parents’ copy), and didn’t find it that impressive. Roger Kimball obviously never heard the phrase “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”–he has many not-so-good things to say of the author/cultural icon/literary thug, who died today (he had been ill for some time).

Interestingly, of all the works that Kimball mentions in his long anti-eulogy, he doesn’t talk about “Of A Fire On The Moon,” his book about Apollo XI.

The reviews here of it are interesting–many of the reviewers who disliked Mailer’s other work liked this one, and vice versa–his traditional fans had little use for it. I’ve never read it myself, and based on the reviews (including one by Roger Launius), I don’t know if I’ll bother now. Anyway, rest in peace. He certainly didn’t live that way.