American Author Norman Mailer Dies at Age 84

Perhaps the most widely known, both nationally and internationally, American author, Norman Mailer, today died of renal failure at age 84, according to his literary executor and collaborator Michael Lennon.

Mailer's professional career spanned over six decades from 1941, from his first penned, little-known, written works while attending Harvard University, through 2007 with his latest published book On God.

His first published novel, a classic, The Naked and the Dead, 1948, was taken from the letters his first wife saved from the mailings he sent to her from the Philippines where he served during WWII.

He is survived by his wife Norris Mailer, with whom he had two children-one natural born and one adopted. Previously, he had been married five times, and had nine children total. His second wife suffered a near-fatal knife wound at his hand after an all night party.

His life was as storied as the gamut of narrative forms to which he put his pen. He never wrote on a computer, choosing pen and paper at all times in his life, because "he was scared that the computer would erase his work."

He had thoughts and opinions about anything and everything in life, and remained quite outspoken down to even these last days. His latest work On God, a dialogue with Lennon, published in book form just this last month in October, and excerpted in the October issue of New York magazine, he pulles no punches in his criticism of President Bush and the Iraq War.

He even goes so far as to declare Bush as, "one of the Devil's clients." And referencing Bush's guidance by his 'born-again faith,' Mailer goes on to say, " And every time he feels that Jesus is talking to him, count on it, Satan is in his ear."

His latest novel The Castle in the Forest, also published this year 2007, brings him back to Russia, if only similar in geographical locale, to one of his favorite novels Harlot's Ghost (1991) which he ended with "to be continued," because, "the Cold War ended, (and) it was as if the literary air went right out of the CIA," Mailer would go on to say.