The Washington Times published my review of Jerome Loving’s Jack and Norman today.
I’ve not read “In the Belly
of the Beast,” Jack Henry Abbott’s book about his prison experiences and his
half-baked commentary on Marxism and Communism, and I don’t plan to. But I have
read Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s Song,” which was one of the few books
by Norman Mailer that I liked.
Jerome Loving’s “Jack and
Norman” is a book about the two books and the relationship between the two
authors; Abbott, a convicted criminal, and Norman Mailer, a celebrated author
who pursued controversy and greatness.
“This is the story of the
author and the apprentice. It is the story of literary influence and tragedy,”
writes Mr. Loving in the introduction to the book. “It is the story of a
state-raised convict, the “by-blow,” as Melville says of another society’s orphans
in “Billy Budd,” a novel that comes into play in our story; of an army drunk;
and a Eurasian prostitute. It is the story of a writer who set out all his life
to write the Great American Novel and stumbled into its greatness as
essentially a gifted journalist whose “true life novel” transcends the
quotidian world of facts. Finally, it is the story of incarceration in
America.”
This is certainly a lot of
ground to cover in one book, but Mr. Loving largely succeeds.
Mr. Mailer was instrumental
in getting Abbott, a check forger, bank robber and violent inmate, paroled from
prison in 1981. He praised Abbott’s writing ability and told prison officials
that he planned to hire him as his literary assistant. Abbott’s prison book was
about to be published and he became a free man again with money and celebrity
advocates. Six weeks after his release, Abbott and two women went to a
late-hour restaurant after a publisher’s party in Abbott’s honor. Abbott got
into an argument with Richard Adan, the restaurant’s manager, and the two went
outside to an alley where Abbott stabbed the manager to death. Abbott then fled
the scene and became a fugitive.
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
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