Norman Mailer knew how to market himself

Norman Mailer was, in many respects, the first serious author who understood how to manipulate his image and enhance his fame in the age of electronic media. Though his first novel, the World War II masterpiece The Naked and the Dead, was a best-seller on its merits, it was Mailer’s subsequent subject matter (sex, violence, revolution, pop culture) and public persona (surly, antagonistic, broad-humored, womanizing, frequently out-of-control) that secured his stardom beyond The New York Times Book Review.