Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship That Shaped the Sixties

by Kevin M. Schultz

Overview

A lively chronicle of the 1960s through the surprisingly close and incredibly contentious friendship of its two most colorful characters.

William F. Buckley, Jr., and Norman Mailer were the two towering intellectual figures of the 1960s, and they lived remarkably parallel lives. Both became best-selling authors in their twenties (with God and Man at Yale and The Naked and the Dead); both started hugely influential papers (National Review and the Village Voice); both ran for mayor of New York City; both were noted for their exceptional wit and venom; and both became the figurehead of their respective social movements (Buckley on the right, Mailer on the left). Indeed, Buckley and Mailer argued vociferously and publicly about every major issue of their time: civil rights, feminism, the counterculture, Vietnam, the Cold War. But behind the scenes, the two were close friends and trusted confidantes. In Buckley and Mailer, historian Kevin M. Schultz delves into their personal archives to tell the rich story of their friendship, their arguments, and the tumultuous decade they did so much to shape.

Here is the entertaining and deeply American story of what Mailer himself called a "difficult friendship": from their debate before the Floyd Patterson–Sonny Liston heavyweight fight in 1962 to their failed mayoral campaigns, to their confrontation at Truman Capote’s Black-and-White Ball, to their starring roles in the central events of the ’60s, including the giant antiwar rally in Berkeley, the March on the Pentagon, and the national political conventions in Miami and Chicago. Through it all, Schultz charts their friendship, whether sailing together off the coast of Connecticut, celebrating rave reviews and grousing about lousy ones, and defending each other's decisions privately even as they attack each other’s positions publicly.

Brimming with Buckley and Mailer's own thoughts from their personal diaries and letters, Buckley and Mailer also features cameos by other leading figures of the time, including James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Barry Goldwater, Robert F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gloria Steinem, and Gore Vidal. Schultz delivers a fresh chronicle of the '60s and its long aftermath as well as an enormously engaging work of narrative history that explores these extraordinary figures' contrasting visions of what America was and what it could be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393088717
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/2015
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Kevin M. Schultz holds a PhD in history from Berkeley and teaches twentieth-century American history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Debating the Future (1962 - 63)

1 The Nature of Man 11

2 Placid Seas 33

3 American Golem 56

Part II Impregnating the Host (1964-65)

4 The Fires 75

5 American Dreams 99

6 The Most Hated Man in America 116

7 Catching All the Falling Bodies 138

Part III Birthing Pangs (1966 - 68)

8 Fly in the Ointment 159

9 A Searing Love of Country 187

10 The Assassination of Politics 211

11 Halfway to Burke 225

Part IV The New Order (1968 - 76]

12 One Last Try 255

13 Jokers 286

14 Moving On 307

Epilogue 320

Acknowledgments 333

Notes 335

Credits 363

Index 367

Editorial Reviews

03/09/2015
University of Illinois historian Schultz’s social history unfolds as Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley—heroes of the left and right, respectively—get to know one another in 1962 and become “near-allies in the battle to overturn the Liberal Establishment.” The book is not a dual biography, nor does it span entire careers: it ends in 1969, with Mailer’s entry into the New York City mayoral race when he was 46 and Buckley was 41. Mailer emerges as the adored protagonist, an all-around mensch, and the political prophet of the radical left. Buckley is treated more formally and critically. The book’s central premise—that Mailer and Buckley were trusted confidants—is a stretch. Schultz also dwells fondly on cafe intellectuals and glamorous literary celebrities—such as Truman Capote, whose exploits are amply covered elsewhere—at some expense to the book’s seriousness. Nevertheless, this “difficult friendship,” as Mailer called it, illuminates the decade’s larger cultural context. Mailer and Buckley were bright, magnetic intellectual leaders and publicity hounds with superhuman energy; both loved America but in different ways. Schultz navigates the 1960s through these two larger-than-life men, offering plentiful anecdotes in an informed, entertaining style. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] provocative and thorough…social and political history of the sixties, among the very best we have had."

Booklist (starred review) - Mark Levine

"Buckley and Mailer brings alive two talented, tireless characters…. Schultz weave[s] their contrasting public lives together in a way that helps to make sense of an era."

Wall Street Journal - Aram Bakshian Jr

"Judging by this ardently researched book, [Buckley and Mailer] seem to have saved every letter they wrote or received, and their lively epistolary relationship forms the core of this perceptive dual portrait."

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Kevin Canfield

04/15/2015
No one would love more, other than the subjects themselves, the level of import Shultz lavishes on his premise that William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008), a conservative author and commentator who founded the conservative magazine National Review, and Norman Mailer (1923–2007), a successful novelist, essayist, playwright, and cultural critic had great societal impact through the public discourse of their friendship. Despite the concept getting little traction here, Schultz (history, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago) engages the reader with his writing style. Unlike the author's first title, Tri-Faith America, with its broad approach—the faith-based analysis of a generation's impact—this latest work attempts to extrapolate the changing social norms of the 1960s through the lives of two accomplished yet different men. Schultz's examination of the times, both public and private, that fostered Buckley and Mailer's complex friendship illuminates each individual's impact on the era, but unfortunately less is revealed about how they, as a collective, shaped anything except their own inflated self-regard. It's much easier to see their relationship having had marginal effect on the decade in question; modernity has relegated their tiffs to lesser annals. Can't they stay there? VERDICT Recommended, with misgivings, for scholars and students of modern American history.—Jewell Anderson, Savannah Country Day Sch. Lib., GA

Library Journal

★ 2015-03-01
A perceptive analysis of the evolution of political cultures that infuses a dissection of the contradictions within liberal and conservative thought with revealing character studies. At the core of this account of rivalry and friendship between William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) and Norman Mailer (1923-2007) is the political excitement of an era gone by, when the radical Mailer and conservative Buckley could spar without allowing substance to be overwhelmed by theater. Schultz (20th Century American History/Univ. of Illinois at Chicago; Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise, 2011) demonstrates how the two men lived remarkably parallel lives as writers and public intellectuals of the 1960s, a confluence begun in 1955, with the birth of Buckley's National Review and Mailer's Village Voice. What they shared above all was an abiding love of America and a nagging fear of its imminent decay. Both abhorred the hollowness of postwar America, with its devotion to consumerism, corporate capitalism, and stultifying rules of social behavior, though they addressed this malaise quite differently. Schultz exhibits a sense of irony and a knack for telling details. He neither glamorizes nor excuses, exposing the best and worst traits of his subjects, their brilliance and their limitations. As political theorists and activists, they could be vague and they were trenchant. Both feared a totalitarianism of the mind, though Buckley (the salesman), unlike Mailer (the philosopher), had no willingness to shift views if he could be convinced that "his understanding of human nature was wrong." Where Mailer sought authenticity, Buckley required fealty to the virtues of tradition. From their first public debate in 1962, the loquacious darling of the right and the pugnacious bulldog of the left found they delighted in challenging each other. From that grew a regard that, despite their differences, endured for decades. In a book rich in anecdote and insight, Schultz assays their relationship splendidly.

Kirkus Reviews

"Brings alive two talented, tireless characters…Schultz weave[s] their contrasting public lives together in a way that helps to make sense of an era."

Wall Street Journal - Aram Bakshian Jr.

"Riveting. In this superbly written account of two of the most fascinating and important 20th-century American intellectuals, Kevin M. Schultz not only brings the spirits of William Buckley and Norman Mailer back to life, he endows us with a subtle yet profound analytical framework for understanding the massive social changes set off during the Sixties. Anyone who wants to understand contemporary American political culture needs to read this book."

Andrew Hartman

"A largely respectful portrait, but Schultz doesn’t sugarcoat his subjects’ failings…Flawed these men were for sure. But…it’s good to remember pundits who thought big, fought big, had something to say and said it with hellacious verve."

Dallas Morning News - Chris Tucker

"Deliciously entertaining and insightful, Buckley and Mailer uses the strange yet meaningful friendship between its combustible protagonists to illuminate its real subject: America’s most tumultuous decade."

Matthew Stewart

"Schultz brings a good-natured, entertaining and, rare in academe, highly readable style to his treatment of two 20th century America patriots whose lives enriched us all."

Washington Times - John R. Coyne Jr.

"One might think that Bill Buckley and Norman Mailer were not at all alike, but Kevin M. Schultz, in his very entertaining book, reminds us to think again. In fact, despite their complicated political differences, these two American originals liked each other, tried to understand each other, and discovered that that they had much in common: a passion for engagement, for literate expression, and perhaps above all the pleasure they took in playing their outsize selves."

Jeffrey Frank

"Illuminate[s], often entertainingly, the cultural and political upheaval of the sixties."

Christian Science Monitor - Barbara Spindel

Norman Mailer on the left and William F. Buckley on the right—lauded literary, political, and intellectual titans of their time—battled each other in public and admired each other in private. Here the private papers and libraries of these colorful public figures are thoroughly mined by author Shultz to create an entertaining, deeply intertwined sketch of two lives and the cataclysmic, heated era of the 1960s. Narrator Peter Berkrot’s astringent East Coast timbre is direct, unadorned, and engaging. Well suited to the material, his clear, raspy tones express immediacy and urgency. This immersive and appealing audio presentation will emphatically inform listeners, including those who consider themselves apolitical. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile