The Big Empty.

"Later the young soldier, by now out of uniform, approached me on the street and introduced himself as a writer. His name, he said, was Mailer. He had just seen my play ['All My Sons']. 'I could write a play like that,' he said. It was so obtusely flat an assertion that I began to laugh, but he was completely serious and indeed would make intermittent attempts to write plays in the many years that lay ahead." Norman Mailer, 1923-2007. To be honest, Mailer's writing never much appealed to me, and his public persona less so. But, if nothing else, he proved how far sheer, undiluted ambition can take you in this world. (Remembrances.)