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In a box somewhere I still have all of my Norman Mailer books, with which I have a relationship that can only be called ambivalent. At the time, I thought he was brilliant even while finding much of his work howlingly awful. Often at the same time. (See Harlot's Ghost, a novel that oscillates wildly between great and terrible and that I remember loving beyond all reason.)

Take this novel, which is a typically overwrought take on a noirish thriller and mixes Mailer's usual obsessions (drugs, drink, what he deemed kinky sex, gunplay, long outdated ideas of masculinity, etcetera) into a bit of overwritten melodrama that should be unreadable, that should not work, that should be laughable and little else. And yet it works marvelously.

Or seemed to at the time. I'll trust my young self and his take on the book: monstrously entertaining, and written with a kind of heedless glee in the silliness of it all. But knowing that taking the project seriously is key to pulling it off.

Really need to unearth that copy and reread it and see if it holds up. And when I do, will report back here.

(Also was made into an execrable Ryan O'Neal movie, which should be avoided at all costs.)