No career in modern American letters is at once so brilliant,
varied, and controversial as that of Norman Mailer. In a span of
more than six decades, Mailer has searched into subjects ranging
from World War II to Ancient Egypt, from the march on the Pentagon
to Marilyn Monroe, from Henry Miller and Mohammad Ali to Jesus
Christ. Now, in The Castle in the Forest, his first major
work of fiction in more than a decade, Mailer offers what may be
his consummate literary endeavor: He has set out to explore the
evil of Adolf Hitler.
The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be an
exceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well as
Hitler’s father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and the
intimate details of his childhood and adolescence.
A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the
Forest delivers its playful twists and surprises with
astonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between good
and evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis that
propels this novel and makes it a work of stunning originality.
Now, on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday, Norman Mailer may
well be saying more than he ever has before.