Barbary Shore

Published at the height of the McCarthy era, Norman Mailer’s audacious novel of socialism* *is at once an elegy and an indictment, a sinuous moral thriller and an intellectual slugfest. Wounded during World War II, Mike Lovett is an amnesiac, and much of his past is a secret to himself. But when Lovett rents a room in Brooklyn, he finds that his housemates have secrets of their own: One betrays a husband no one ever sees; another may have been a Communist executioner. Combining Kafkaesque unease with Orwellian paranoia, *Barbary Shore *plays havoc with our certainties and delivers its effects with a force that is pure Mailer.

**Praise for *Barbary Shore***

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“A work of remarkable power, of amazing penetration, both into people and the determining forces of American life.”**—*The Atlantic Monthly***

“Vibrant with life, abundant with real people . . . [Mailer has] a scintillating skill in observation, a mature sense of meaning.”**—*The Philadelphia Inquirer***

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“This book is nothing short of amazing.”**—*Newsweek***

“*Barbary Shore *[is] about the kind of country—and what you might call the psychic territory—that American war heroes were returning to.”**—*The Guardian***

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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***