NORMAN MAILER, it’s fair to say, isn’t as fashionable as he once was. For much of his life he was considered a towering figure of post-war American literature. By the end of it, though—and especially since his death in 2007—he’s more often been regarded as a regrettable macho relic, with his taste for booze, fighting and philandering his way through no less than six marriages.
Most notoriously, in November 1960, while optimistically standing for mayor of New York, he drunkenly stabbed his second wife, Adele, almost killing her. This, not surprisingly, ended his mayoral campaign—but such
