Mailer’s Choice

Abstract

In “Mailer’s Choice,” Barbara Probst Solomon offers a reflective and intellectually wide-ranging assessment of Norman Mailer’s The Castle in the Forest, focusing on the novel’s bold engagement with theology, evil, and the Holocaust. Solomon situates Mailer’s use of God and the Devil within a broader tradition of serious literary inquiry, arguing that his imaginative reconstruction of Hitler’s origins confronts moral and historical questions that secular criticism often avoids. Drawing on literary, philosophical, and cultural touchstones, the review frames Mailer’s novel as a demanding but necessary intervention in postwar debates about fascism, responsibility, and the representation of absolute evil.