The Life and Death of the Celebrity Author in Maidstone

Authors

  • Sarah Bishop University of Virginia Author

Keywords:

celebrity authorship, performative identity, media spectacle, existential authenticity, Advertisements for Myself, cinematic self-fashioning, countercultural performance

Abstract

Mailer acknowledges that modernist authors had to carefully maintain their public images in order to be successful, but he also seems to instinctively understand that a new breed of what we might retrospectively call “postmodern” authors are most successful when they manifest a willingness to perform outside of and in contradiction to cultural convention and consumer demand. The role of the celebrity author in Maidstone is examined.

Author Biography

  • Sarah Bishop, University of Virginia

    Sarah Bishop is a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. She is currently completing a dissertation on indexicality and the counterculture of the 1960s.

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Published

2026-10-09

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2012): Why Mailer Matters

Section

Articles