Mary V. Dearborn

"Mary Dearborn captures the heart of the heavyweight ego who has knocked out thirty-one books, six wives, nine children, and a mayoral run."

"A wonderful biography . . . [Dearborn] has laid it out with order, wit, and a fine sense of social history."

"Dearborn deals effectively with Mailer's predator sexual habits . . . It is greatly to her credit, and typical of her eminently sensible approach to biography, that she judges him by the standards of his time, not today's. She does not expect to find him in the vanguard on all fronts. If only more biographers were as intelligent and mature."

"This is a fascinating and evenhanded description of a wildly controversial controversial life."