Harlot's Ghost: A Novel

By Norman Mailer

With unprecedented scope and consummate skill, Norman Mailer unfolds a rich and riveting epic of an American spy. Harry Hubbard is the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his society—and his own past—takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the “momentous catastrophe” of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy. Featuring a tapestry of unforgettable characters both real and imagined, Harlot’s Ghost is a panoramic achievement in the tradition of Tolstoy, Melville, and Balzac, a triumph of Mailer’s literary prowess.
 
Praise for Harlot’s Ghost
 
“[Norman Mailer is] the right man to exalt the history of the CIA into something better than history.”—Anthony Burgess, The Washington Post Book World
 
“Elegantly written and filled with almost electric tension . . . When I returned from the world of Harlot’s Ghost to the present I wished to be enveloped again by Mailer’s imagination.”—Robert Wilson, USA Today
 
“Immense, fascinating, and in large part brilliant.”—Salman Rushdie, The Independent on Sunday
 
“A towering creation . . . a fiction as real and as possible as actual history.”—The New York Times
 
Praise for Norman Mailer
 
“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times
 
“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker
 
“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post
 
“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life
 
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books
 
“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 23, 2007
• ISBN: 9781588365897

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer (1923-2007) ha sido uno de los mayores escritores norteamericanos contemporáneos, así como una figura central en el panorama cultural: novelista, periodista, director de cine, activista político, aspirante a alcalde de Nueva York y enfant terrible todoterreno. Su primera novela, Los desnudos y los muertos, sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial, que lo catapultó a la fama, ha sido publicada por Anagrama, donde también han aparecido Los ejércitos de la noche (Premio Pulitzer y National Book Award), La Canción del Verdugo (Premio Pulitzer), Oswald. Un misterio americano, Los tipos duros no bailan, El parque de los ciervos, El Evangelio según el Hijo, El fantasma de Harlot, ¿Por qué estamos en guerra?, América y El castillo en el bosque.

Reviews for Harlot's Ghost

[clara53_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The sheer enormity of this novel was challenging at first: 1,282 pages!!! From the very beginning, I wished it came in 2 volumes - it was hard to pick up this book with one hand! I call it One Man's Saga of CIA, going from 1953 (with some flashbacks into earlier history) to 1963. Actual historical figures are not only mentioned but described in detail - CIA, FBI agents and political figures, as well as famous spies like Kim Philby, Burgess, MacLean... And among them, Harry Hubbard, our protagonist, is building his career in CIA, and one of the main reasons he is there is because he has been "intellectually seduced", as suggested by his colleague/friend/lover Kitteridge (also the wife of his CIA mentor and godfather - quite an intricate side plot here as well; Kitteridge is also the one who invented a very interesting theory of Alpha and Omega (sort of like Yin and Yang, but with different nuances...) - two parts of everyone's personality - which was used as a tool in her CIA work). The novel has moments of danger, intrigue, occasional boredom of routine CIA tasks, improbable hypotheses of historical events, and, for me, some real eye-openers of US and world policies at the time. Vivid portraits of Fidel Castro and Jack and Robert Kennedy. Of course, it didn't take just one sitting to finish this book, I had breaks for smaller books in between. And yet, the plot was strong enough for me to be able to keep it in memory throughout.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun, if too long novel of the CIA with crosses, double crosses, and lots of intrigue. Does provide us with some interesting insight into the Cold War, and into the world before the Berlin Wall came down. My favorite scenes are the ones actually taking place in Berlin.

[_________jt_________ · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Any individual section of this book might rate four to four-and-a-half stars, but taken all together, this thing is just exhausting. The wearying effect is exacerbated by the fact that the book consists of three relatively disconnected segments, rather than one all-encompassing story. In spite of the length, this book is not bloated; think of it as three tightly-written 400-page novels strung loosely together. Admittedly, I know nothing about the CIA other than what I've read in this book, but the account that Mailer presents is thoroughly researched and seems very believable. A few peripheral details, however, stretch crediblility, such as A) the inclusion of a gay character named "Dix Butler" (really?), B) a grown, respected man who calls himself by the name of his favorite baseball player (although many characters, including Cal, exhibit outrageous toffery that makes that decision a little more credible, if not palatable), C) consensual gay gangbangs in a Catholic boarding school (I can believe that sexual abuse takes place, but the degree of it and the casualness with which the acts are treated confuse me), and D) a mentor character that teaches the protagonist to rock-climb over the course of months, only to tell him he sucks at it and to join the CIA instead. These absurdities detract little from the overall effect of the novel, though, especially once you get 800 pages or so removed from them. All in all, it's extremely informative, interesting, and believable, just an epic struggle to complete. Good luck.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very lengthy account of a CIA operative