"A book of gargantuan propensities... incalculable in impact... brilliant passages... compulsively readable." * TIME Magazine *
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) was one of the 20th century's greatest and most influential writers, as well as one of America's most renowned and controversial literary figures. The best-selling author of a dozen novels and 20 works of nonfiction, he also wrote stage plays, screenplays, television miniseries, hundreds of essays, two books of poetry, and a collection of short stories. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Bert Stern (1929-2013) was one of America's greatest portrait photographers, who during the 1960s produced 200 pages annually for Vogue, as well as many of the most important print and television advertising campaigns. He is best known for his revolutionary print ads for Smirnoff and for his portrait series of Marilyn Monroe, taken just six weeks before her death. Stern lived and worked in New York City.