Devastating and spot on. I have always detested Mailer’s clownish arrogance, and still see him as the complete buffoon, so grotesquely swollen with ludicrous and unearned vanity as he was.

That said, I find I must read “Harlot’s Ghost” every 5 years or so. His “history” of the CIA in the 50′s and up through the Bay of Pigs is fascinating for its study of historical events as well as both actual persons and thinly disguised fictional characters.

But my God, even in a book about the Cold War and its warriors, he can’t stop himself from throwing in a goodly sampling of sodomy. What IS it with that man and his obsession with buggery in all its variations? While the Freudian answer is almost too obvious and easy for credit, it appears to be the most likely as well.