In 1974, while jogging on the outskirts of Kinshasa, Normal Mailer was shocked to hear the coughing bark of a lion close by. At first, he began to run faster, then he slowed because a headline had started to form in his mind: Norman Mailer, Eaten by Lion. Mailer thought that would look quite good at the top of the New York Times.
That's not how it worked out. A guy who loved boxing, and who went through life throwing punches in every direction, Mailer was often more controversial himself than his work. He was a bully. He was a sexist. He was also a helluva writer who twice won the Pulitzer for nonfiction, but never again seemed to capture the lightning-in-a-bottle of his first novel, The Naked and the Dead.
Normal Mailer, novelist, is dead at age 84.