Norman Mailer, R.I.P.

He was a unique force in American letters, and American cultural life, and his embrace of both his inner devil and his inner angel often overshadowed his talent. But many people noticed:

Joan Didion, reviewing [The Executioner's Song] for The New York Times Book Review, said: “It is ambitious to the point of vertigo. It is a largely unremarked fact about Mailer that he is a great and obsessed stylist, a writer to whom the shape of the sentence is the story. His sentences do not get long or short by accident, or because he is in a hurry …”

A great writer, and a deeply flawed good man:

Farewell, NM.