One of America's greatest writers, Norman Mailer, (1923-2007) burst onto the literary scene with his powerful first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948).

Raised in Brooklyn with an engineering degree from Harvard, the young artist wrote the graphic World War II epic just before enrolling in Paris' Sorbonne and became an overnight celebrity.

"Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day," said the man known for his eloquent, gritty journalistic style.

Outspoken, with a reputation for living life boldly with machismo, he unflinchingly observed, "Discovering the truth is about as simple as getting to know a woman well. It's close to impossible."

Along with Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, and Truman Capote, Mailer created the New Journalism, an application of fictional techniques to nonfiction writing.

Calling novelists a special breed, Mailer once said, "We're ...somewhere between psychologists, historians, detectives, students of style and manner - we have a capacity to do things that other people don't."

Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Armies of the Night (1968), about his tumult antiwar observations, and The Executioner’s Song (1979), the Gary Gilmore epic.

With a career of creative longevity and a larger-than-life public persona, Mailer courted controversy. He continued to write for over half a century... And worried about critics: "I care about reviews - they affect your wallet in the most direct fashion."

Grow, with motion.