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The Book Club: Richard Bradford

The Book Club: Richard Bradford

Best of the Spectator · The Spectator

February 15, 202338m 22s

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Show Notes

<div>My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is the scholar and biographer Richard Bradford, whose new book <em>Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer</em> looks at the rackety life and uneven oeuvre of one of the big beasts of 20th-century American letters. Mailer, as Richard argues, thought his self-identified genius as a writer licensed any amount of personal bad behaviour – up to and including stabbing one of his wives. As the book makes clear Mailer was a racist, misogynist, homophobe, thug and a boor. But was he also, actually, any good? And will he last?</div> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>