From Library Journal
Leeds (English, Central Connecticut State Univ.; The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer) is an unabashed Mailer fan. The present book, which is more subjective than his earlier volume, treats the themes of women and heterosexuality, politics, and ritualized violence in Mailer's work. Leeds focuses on the writer's later works, but he returns repeatedly to An American Dream, a novel he deems central to Mailer's artistic vision. Leeds's ideas are engaging, his enthusiasm infectious, and his prose mercifully free of critical jargon. His generous use of quotations may draw readers back to Mailer's works, something Leeds no doubt intends in a book that is more celebration than literary critique. Leeds's 1987 interview with Mailer and a brief review essay on books about Mailer are included. A chapter titled "Mailer and Me" tells more about Leeds than Mailer, a fault that might leave the author open to a charge of self-indulgence. Nevertheless, the book provides a useful introduction to Mailer and his work. Recommended for contemporary literature collections. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Barbara Lupack, author of Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction
Insightful, incisive, witty, compelling - the volume suggests provocative ways of looking at a major writer in his own time.


William Gargan, Library Journal, December 2001
Leeds' ideas are engaging, his enthusiasm infectious, and his prose mercifully free of critical jargon... Recommended for contemporary literature collections.


J. Michael Lennon, Mailer Archivist and co-author of Norman Mailer: Works and Days
I enjoyed reading this book immensely; it is a fine addition to the Mailer critical canon.


Book Description
This book is a critical study of Norman Mailer's work, starting where the author's previous book - THE STRUCTURED VISION OF NORMAN MAILER - ended. This book reveals a side of Mailer that only a friend and confidant would know, a side which Leeds has come to understand and appreciate. Leeds, a Distinguished Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, carefully and intelligently weaves this personal Mailer into the Mailer persona and the Mailer art.


About the Author
Dr. Barry H. Leeds, Distinguished Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, is the author of two other books: THE STRUCTURED VISION OF NORMAN MAILER and KEN KESEY. He has taught at CCSU since 1968.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer is Professor Barry H. Leeds' second book about one of America's most respected, most controversial, and most prolific of authors. It looks at Mailer from where Leeds' first volume left off and takes him on through his most recent works. In addition, it reveals a side of Mailer that only a friend and confidant would know, a side which Leeds has come to understand and appreciate. Leeds carefully and intelligently weaves this personal Mailer into the Mailer persona and the Mailer art. This is literary criticism with a heart and soul, and with an appreciation of subject which is so often missed in contemporary analyses of this sort.

SYNOPSIS

This book is a critical study of Norman Mailer's work, starting where the author's previous book The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer ended. The new book reveals a side of Mailer that only a friend and confidant would know, a side which Leeds has come to understand and appreciate. Leeds carefully and intelligently weaves this personal Mailer into the Mailer persona and the Mailer art.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal