6 Books to Watch for in April 2010

A Ticket to the Circus

By Norris Church Mailer
432 pages; Random House

Just how irresistible was Norman Mailer? Gloria Steinem said that anybody who would marry him couldn't be "healthy, well-adjusted, conscious, or aware"—but she was friends with him. Ditto the feminist Germaine Greer, close to him around the time Mailer was quoted as saying, "A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul." And then there was New York congresswoman Bella Abzug, who, when she first met Norris, his sixth wife, offered her home phone number in case Norris ever needed to get away from him. Yet Abzug had wholeheartedly supported Mailer in his quixotic bid for New York City mayor in 1969. Go figure...Read more

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