How Mailer Became “Mailer”

The Writer as Private and Public Character

Authors

  • Morris Dickstein CUNY Graduate Center Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.68910/7cwrdz87

Keywords:

postwar American literature, New Journalism, literary self-fashioning, cultural criticism, counterculture, politics and literature

Abstract

Mailer has been our most protean writer, remarkably consistent in his themes yet always surprising in the ways he finds to pursue them, beginning with his own inimitable style. In choosing his subjects he was like a riverboat gambler restless for risk; each new venture depended on bold strokes that could as soon fail as succeed. Strategies that worked well would never be exactly repeated. Invariably he was engaging the moment, never writing for the uniform edition.

Author Biography

  • Morris Dickstein, CUNY Graduate Center

    Morris Dickstein was a leading American literary critic and cultural historian, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. Educated at Columbia, Cambridge, and Yale, he studied with figures including Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom. His scholarship ranged widely across American literature, film, and cultural history, combining academic criticism with public intellectual engagement. A longtime contributor to major journals such as The New York Times Book Review and Partisan Review, he authored influential works including Gates of Eden and Dancing in the Dark, the latter a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Mailer Review v.16: 20 Years of the Review

Downloads

Published

2026-11-04

Issue

Vol. 16 (2026): Special Edition: 20 Years of the Review

Section

I. Monument to Method: Ideology, Gender, and the Cultural Stakes of Mailer

How to Cite

Dickstein, Morris. “How Mailer Became ‘Mailer’: The Writer As Private and Public Character”. The Mailer Review, vol. 16, no. 1, Nov. 2026, pp. 23–34, https://doi.org/10.68910/7cwrdz87.