Censoring Norman Mailer?

I will say I have not read much Mailer. I knew of him - he worked hard at being known. I tried reading his Egyptian novel decades ago and found it unreadable. While in prison, I did  read his book on the 1968 political conventions - that I liked very much. Then I read his novel The Naked and the Dead, which I did read with interest. Although without enough interest to read the massive Executioner's Song. There is enough about his biography to make me think spending time alone with him would have been much fun. Yet he is an important writer. To deny him his place in our literary history denigrates that history and ourselves. Give the man credit for not being a milquetoast accomplice in mindless conformity.

Long dead he may now be finally censored according to Michael Wolff on Random House's Cancellation of Norman Mailer.

You live only until an objection scares the people whose job is more and more to avoid objections — that new, primary executive function. (A recent addition to the writer-editor-reader relationship is something called a “sensitivity reader,” that is someone of diverse background who can advise on dicey cultural matters whom writers are now encouraged to consult. Needless to say, Mailer never had a sensitivity reader.).... 

We live in fearful times. This fearfulness motivates the cancel culture of the right and the left, and lets publishers censor the controversial. I expect censorship for myself but Norman Mailer? 

This does not portend good things for our future. Will we ban Hemingway because PETA objects to the bullfighting and big game hunting? Or cancel Gore Vidal for bring gay and liberal? At what point do we understand there is imperfection in all created works because we are all imperfect creatures. Not facing up to our imperfections - what I see as art's great purpose - makes a small, cowardly people.

The Bulwark 's podcast ACROSS THE MOVIE AISLE also takes up Norman Mailer's rejection. 

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