Of a Fire on the Moon, Norman Mailer
Of a Fire on the Moon, Norman Mailer
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Of a Fire on the Moon

Author: Norman Mailer

Narrator: MacLeod Andrews

Unabridged: 16 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 12/06/2016


Synopsis

For many, the moon landing was the defining event of the twentieth century. So it seems only fitting that Norman Mailer—the literary provocateur who altered the landscape of American nonfiction—wrote the most wide-ranging, far-seeing chronicle of the Apollo 11 mission. A classic chronicle of America’s reach for greatness in the midst of the Cold War, Of a Fire on the Moon compiles the reportage Mailer published between 1969 and 1970 in Life magazine: gripping firsthand dispatches from inside NASA’s clandestine operations in Houston and Cape Kennedy; technical insights into the magnitude of their awe-inspiring feat; and prescient meditations that place the event in human context as only Mailer could.

About Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1955, he was one of the co-founders of The Village Voice. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Naked and the Dead; The Armies of the Night, for which he won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Executioner's Song, for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize; Harlot's Ghost; Oswald's Tale; and The Gospel According to the Son. He lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with his wife, the novelist Norris Church Mailer.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andy on January 28, 2015

I've had no involvement with Norman Mailer though I'm aware of his name. I got this on a whim as the blurb made it seem exactly the kind of book I'd like. I sometimes wonder if my generation will ever have anything to equal the universal heights of the Moon landings. 9/11 probably comes closest yet......more

Goodreads review by Jordan on June 30, 2018

On topic, off topic, Mailer is a literary live wire. This is much more than sheer reportage, it's rumination, philosophy, history, egomania, and stylistic pyrotechnics. Sometimes, Mailer goes so far afield that you wonder if he will ever return to the topic. But even in these digressions, he's brill......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on October 09, 2015

A mammoth task described in a mammoth tome written by a mammoth ego. Part One is a personal account of Norman Mailer's time at Cape Kennedy during the launch of Apollo 11, written as it happened: history seen from the vantage point of press enclosures, pool parties and hotel rooms. Part Two goes bac......more

Goodreads review by Lark on January 30, 2019

Mailer's account of Apollo 11 begins with the death of Ernest Hemingway. It ends with his unsettling realization that he is about to divorce his wife. In between is an ambitious, scary, daring, edge-of-bombastic, utterly unexpected and urgent blast of prose that taught me more about the moon launch......more

Goodreads review by Mark on April 06, 2015

Some thoughts upon rereading Norman Mailer’s, Of a Fire on the Moon. I graduated high school in June of 1969. I barely remember my graduation day, but I will never forget the evening of July 20, 1969, watching TV at a friend’s house on a hot and sticky night in Northern New Jersey when, at 10:18 pm,......more