Arts and Letters Daily’s site states that Mailer is dead, tersely links to a score of obituaries, and at the end of that list says: there is “dissent from Roger Kimball.”

You click ‘cos, what, is this Kimball arguing that Mailer is in fact alive?

He nearly is. This is a great, fast-acting dose of venom, Mr Kimball, but it’s unlikely to kill off the Mailer cult, especially considering what a booster shot they just got.

Two things. You slight “The Executioner’s Song” overmuch; in fact, you barely consider it except as some funhouse reflection of the Abbott affair. But “Song” was a book first, an extraordinary one; even today it does not read like an act of convict-worship or murder-glam, unless you look at it through an extra-literary rear-view mirror.

Speaking of which, it’s been almost 40 years since the Doors released “Back Door Man,” so it may behoove us to be a little less pucker-mouthed about the deceased’s enthusiasm for anal, dontcha think?

Even for those of us who are prudish about spouse-stabbing and political nihilism, it’s a stretch to link Mailerism’s dark side to the common practice of going up a willing lady’s bum. It’s not a very deviant or even fetishistic act, really, is it?

One retires to consider these matters — later, one’s gonna read some more of Roger Kimball’s stuff, as you’re a helluva writer, sir, though you may wish to retire the term “buggery.”