Winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Armies of the Night and again for The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer mastered the art of mass media, becoming one of the greatest—and most inescapable—writers of his era. Combing through Mailer's letters and journals, Richard Bradford creates a portrait of a brilliant wordsmith turned pop culture narcissist, and suggests that Mailer's own life comes as close as is possible to being the Great American Novel.