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“The View of the Gang”

An Excerpt from The Loud Boys.

While the exchange between captor and captive took place, the gang stared– gaped– at the female body in their midst, which stood before them with tangible presence, as if gigantically tall.

They felt her vibration, her reality. Representation to them of waiting fertility and vulnerability– for many of them a living symbol of their dreams and disappointments. Their failures. A few hated her. Others wanted her, lusted after her, without thinking consciously about her. Innate drives and frustrations kicked in. There in front of them, the waiting woman, to have or ravish– hungers which might or might not be displaced and satiated by the promise and anticipation of beer and pizza.

(The Loud Boys is now available at Nook, Kobo, and Kindle.)

Most Charismatic #15: Norman Mailer

ALL-TIME AMERICAN WRITERS TOURNAMENT

Norman Mailer

NO WRITER tried harder to be charismatic. No author worked harder at being a celebrity– from running for mayor of New York City to directing and starring in low-budget movies to trying to levitate the Pentagon to writing a book about Marilyn Monroe to appearing on television talk shows to stabbing his wife, Norman Mailer was always chasing headlines. Mailer took the phrase “Advertisements for Myself” (one of his book titles) literally. The Harvard grad’s main problem was he didn’t have a lot of charisma. Articulate? Yes. Verbose? Very much. Norman Mailer could talk all day. But his writing and persona lacked the certain “Oomph!” which goes along with being a true celebrity.

Still, we give him an “A” for trying, and place him at Number Fifteen of America’s Most Charismatic All-Time Writers.

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NEXT: Who is #14?
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