Parallel Lives

Authors

  • Gerald R. Lucas Middle Georgia State University Author

Keywords:

William F. Buckley, public intellectuals, the 1960s, conservatism and radicalism, media and celebrity, democratic debate

Abstract

Gerald R. Lucas reviews Kevin M. Schultz’s Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship That Shaped the Sixties (W. W. Norton), a dual biography of William F. Buckley and Mailer as public intellectuals at the height of their influence in the 1960s. Lucas finds the book even-handed, with perhaps a slight bias toward Mailer, accessible, novelistic, and well researched, and recommends it for any seminar on the sixties. He reflects on its implicit lament for the absence of such figures today and on Mailer’s use of every available medium to engage a distracted nation.

Author Biography

  • Gerald R. Lucas, Middle Georgia State University

    Gerald R. Lucas (@drgrlucas) teaches humanities and new media studies at Middle Georgia State University. His research and teaching interests include new media, speculative fiction, eLearning, and twentieth-century American literature. He is a Professor of English and a Norman Mailer Fellow and he maintains Project Mailer, works as the Senior Media Editor of The Mailer Review, and posts frequently on Medium and Twitter.

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Published

2015-09-30

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2015): Maestro

Section

Book Reviews

How to Cite

Lucas, Gerald R. “Parallel Lives”. The Mailer Review, vol. 9, no. 1, Sept. 2015, pp. 316–321, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/533.