The American is the New Man, creating himself afresh; and for many a stateside writer, the novel has represented an opportunity to try on alternate identities. In his “Rabbit” books, John Updike, successful author, imagines himself as a failed jock, proud not of cerebral but of physical exploits. Likewise, in his would-be magnum opus, Harlot’s Ghost, Norman Mailer—wife-stabber, Pentagon stormer, and all-around anti-establishment Rebel Without a Clue—re-creates himself as a CIA man, thereby underscoring what we’ve known all along: that for Fanny Mailer’s ambitious son, the question “Which side are you on?” has never been nearly as important as “Are you where the action is?”1

Harlot’s Ghost consists of two texts....

 

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