Norman Mailer: That Spooky Fart"

Oh dear Jesus. Norman Mailer, the countercultural literary hero and self proclaimed "heavyweight champion of writing" has suffered a TKO in his latest piece of ... "work" called Modest Gifts: Poems and Drawings.

The Corsair may blast The New York Press from time to time, but Alexander Zaitchik's vivisection of Mailer's new money making scheme is right on the money.

It takes a lot of nerve to expect $14.95 for this crock of shit. It doesn't even appear as if Mailer has ever tried to learn how to draw, or sketch, or whatever it is he is hoisting on us. His poetry is, as usual, uninspired, self indulgent and stupid. Mailer's got a lot of alimony payments and so maybe that's why he is hawking his wares in this untoward manner.

I guess that the venerated writer -- now past 80 years on Earth -- is so great that we should be happy to snatch up the scaps from his table from on high in P-Town. One should marvel in the godlike grandeur of his sloppy scribblings and adolescent, undisciplined poetry, for he is Mailer, he is our great American of Letters.

After publishing That Spooky Art, a weak cut and paste job worthy of anything William Burroughs produced in his last days (and that's not saying much), one should have seen this coming. In his senectitude Mailer has morphed from hipster to hustler, selling us knock of writing for real literature. Do not buy this book, dear readers, The Corsair has spoken.

Norman Mailer's Modest Gifts is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, it should be thrown with great force!