This is an absolutely dead-on, ruthlessly truthful assessment of Mailer and his literary accomplishments, if any.Have never been able to finish a single one of his books, though I have tried mightily, especially as a young man, feeling then that I needed to know his work. Later, Mr. Mailer wrote a piece for a magazine where I worked as an editor, for which he was paid $50,000 (a shocking amount, then and now). The literary lion had trouble delivering and had to be given a conference room at the magazine (Esquire) and an “assistant” to help him meet his deadline. The piece was a routine interview. The final result was such a horrific mish-mash that, once again, I couldn’t finish it without much determined skimming. All in all, he seemed to have no special talent for either long-form works or routine culture pieces. So what was his talent anyway? Self-promotion, I guess.