The Gospel According to the Son

Norman Mailer fused fact and fiction to create indelible portraits of such figures as Marilyn Monroe, Gary Gilmore, and Lee Harvey Oswald. In *The Gospel According to the Son, *Mailer reimagines, as no other modern author has, the key character of Western history. Here is Jesus Christ’s story in his own words: the discovery of his divinity and the painful, powerful journey to accepting and expressing it, “as if I were a man enclosing another man within.” In its brevity and piercing simplicity, it may be Mailer’s most accessible, direct, and heartfelt work.

**Praise for *The Gospel According to the Son***

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“Quietly penetrating . . . [Norman Mailer’s] gospel is written in a direct, rather relaxed English that yet has an eerie, neo-Biblical dignity.”**—John Updike, *The New Yorker***

“A book of considerable intellectual force . . . The writer’s powerful mind works in a specialized way, not by theological argumentation but by telling or retelling a story.”**—*The New York Review of Books***

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“Challenges readers on the religious right and the atheist left with equally rich interpretive tasks.”**—*The Dallas Morning News***

“An informed and believable work of fiction . . . of what may have been going through the mind of Jesus during his epic ministry.”**—*San Francisco Chronicle***

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**Praise for Norman Mailer**

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“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”**—*The New York Times***

“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”**—*The New Yorker***

“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”**—*The Washington Post***

“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”**—*Life***

“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”**—*The New York Review of Books***

“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”**—*Chicago Tribune***

“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”**—*The Cincinnati Post***

*From the Hardcover edition.*