On January 31, 1923, Norman Kingsley Mailer, novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and liberal political activist, was born at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch. His grandfather, Chaim Yehudah Schneider, was known as the town’s “unofficial rabbi.” Mailer’s family had prospered in the hotel business in the area, including owning the Scarboro Hotel on Ocean Ave. and South Bath Ave., considered the last of the grand Long Branch seaside hotels. They expanded their portfolio with the purchase of three large beach houses on Ocean Avenue, which they named “Kingsley Court” in honor of Norman. When Norman was five, the family moved to Brooklyn. Norman would return to Long Branch to spend his summers with family still in the area, and did his first writing at the Scarboro. Mailer was considered “one of the most controversial figures” of his era, and also, “one of the most influential.” He became a best-selling author at age 23, twice won the Pulitzer Prize, ran for mayor of New York City, and co-founded The Village Voice. Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, which uses the style and devices of literary fiction in fact-based journalism.
Norman Mailer was considered one of the most controversial figures of his time, and if you don’t believe that, check out the video clip from the movie Maidstone, where actor Rip Torn actually attacked Normal Mailer with a hammer, on camera. Whether in his capacity as an author, critic, or actor, Norman Mailer was almost always getting into a scrap with this or that man. He was married six times.
In a new biography published in 2022, author Richard Bradford disclosed that Mailer, born in Long Branch and raised in Brooklyn, and a longtime resident of New York City, in later years adopted a Texas accent, possibly arising out of his fascination with the state after writing about the assassination of President Kennedy.
Mailer died on November 10, 2007. In 2018, a memorial marker to Mailer, his family, and the Scarboro Hotel was erected on the beach at Long Branch.
Sources:
Bradford, Richard. (2022). Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer. Bloomsbury Caravel, New York, N.Y.
Lennon, J. Michael (2013). Norman Mailer: A Double Life. Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y., P. 7-14.
Rollyson, Carl (1991). The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography. Paragon House, New York, N.Y., P. 1-5.
Dearborn, Mary V., (1999). Mailer: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, N.Y., P. 11-16.
Featured image credit: Norman Mailer by Bernard Gotfryd, 1967, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norman_Mailer_writing,_cropped.jpg
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