Moonfire

Mailer in Amber

Authors

  • Michael L. Shuman University of South Florida Author

Keywords:

Moonfire, Of a Fire on the Moon, Apollo 11, space race, Life magazine, Colum McCann

Abstract

Michael L. Shuman reviews the fiftieth-anniversary edition of Norman Mailer’s Moonfire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 (Taschen), introduced by Colum McCann, which sets the text of Of a Fire on the Moon among NASA and Life photographs. Treating the book as an artifact of its moment, Shuman reads it beside the 1969 Life issue that first serialized Mailer’s account, earlier space-age forecasts by Dandridge Cole, Isaac Asimov, and Wernher von Braun, and Roland Miller’s photographs of abandoned space sites, endorsing Mailer’s sense that commerce outflanked the spirit of exploration. He praises the images and Mailer’s prose and recalls his own memories of the space race.

Author Biography

  • Michael L. Shuman, University of South Florida

    Michael L. Shuman had long careers in both newspaper management and software development before earning his PhD and joining the Department of English at University of South Florida, where he teaches writing for the technical professions and coordinates the department’s internship program. Dr. Shuman is Deputy Editor of The Mailer Review.

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Published

2018-10-25

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2018)

Section

Book Reviews

How to Cite

Shuman, Michael L. “Moonfire: Mailer in Amber”. The Mailer Review, vol. 12, no. 1, Oct. 2018, pp. 269–281, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/662.