Mr. Kimball, unlike some of your other readers, I do not care if you oomposed this piece in anticipation of Mailer’s death. Your assessment is right on the money. I have lived through the years of Mailer’s career and I cannot morn his passing. Again like some of your reader’s, I could not finish a Mailer book or article. Even early on he was a blowhard and bore. That he prospered so long is not so much a condemnation of him but of the literary “establishment”, the precious New York intelligentsia. I hope they are next.