Who was Adolf Hitler? It's a question writers have been trying to answer for more than sixty years. But after thousands of biographies, histories, novels, and films, many fundamental questions remain: How do we explain Hitler's hatred? Where did it come from? Could it happen again? Norman Mailer sets out to respond to these and other crucial aspects of Hitler's personality in his compulsively readable new novel. Spanning three generations, and a hundred years of history, the book brings to life the Hitlers - grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and, ultimately, young Adolf - in an energetic and wildly entertaining family saga. Mailer recounts the marriages, incestuous couplings, estrangements, afflictions, and deaths that lead to the birth of young Adolf in 1889. Told in the voice of a mysterious (and unreliable) narrator, this playful yet profound novel blends fact and fiction in a stirring family tale that will cause the reader to re-examine his preconceived ideas about Hitler and the nature of his evil.
Accolades
Winner of Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2007.
Author Biography
Norman Mailer published his first book,THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, in 1948. THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1969; Mailer received another Pulitzer in 1980 for THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG. He has written thirty books.
