Vol. 4 No. 1 (2010): Literary Warriors

Volume 4 of The Mailer Review (Fall 2010), titled "Literary Warriors," brings together more than two dozen contributors to explore the rich connections between Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway — two writers who, a generation apart, each transformed the American literary landscape of their respective halves of the twentieth century. Both were cultural iconoclasts drawn to primal human struggles, "manly" sports, French culture, and the relentless interrogation of what it means to be human; both burst onto the scene with celebrated war novels at roughly the same age; and both forged bold new styles that pushed prose to what Sipiora calls "dizzying levels of sublimity." While Hemingway's influence on Mailer is well documented and examined here in several essays, the volume also probes subtler affinities between these two literary warriors who, remarkably, never met.