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Fiction. Literature. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:With unprecedented scope and consummate skill, Norman Mailer unfolds a rich and riveting epic of an American spy. Harry Hubbard is the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his society�and his own past�takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the �momentous catastrophe� of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy. Featuring a tapestry of unforgettable characters both real and imagined, Harlot�s Ghost is a panoramic achievement in the tradition of Tolstoy, Melville, and Balzac, a triumph of Mailer�s literary prowess. Praise for Harlot�s Ghost �[Norman Mailer is] the right man to exalt the history of the CIA into something better than history.��Anthony Burgess, The Washington Post Book World �Elegantly written and filled with almost electric tension . . . When I returned from the world of Harlot�s Ghost to the present I wished to be enveloped again by Mailer�s imagination.��Robert Wilson, USA Today �Immense, fascinating, and in large part brilliant.��Salman Rushdie, The Independent on Sunday �A towering creation . . . a fiction as real and as possible as actual history.��The New York Times Praise for Norman Mailer �[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.… (more)
User reviews
The novel starts off with Harry Hubbard,a CIA agent who has fallen from grace travelling to Russia to solve the mystery behind the dissaperance/possible murder of his mentor Huge "Harlot" Montague (who used to be the heart and nerve centre of the CIA). While in russia, Harry reads through his memoirs of life in the CIA. His memoirs begin with being tested by his eccentric father who works in the CIA. Mountain climbing expeditions with Hugh Montague, life in Berlin with Bill Harvey a self styled martini swigging CIA boss, playing two russian agents against each other over a woman in Montevideo,ganizing the Bay of Pigs operation, dating Sinatra and JFK's common air hostess girlfriend and finally the assasination of JFK are all part of Harry's memoirs. there are also epistolary converations with kitteridge (Hugh Montague's wife) with whom Harry embarks on a love affair.
Nearly every character in the novel is explained using the concept of alpha and omega. There are fantastic passages about East-West relations, communism, capitalism, american masculinity, love, fidel castro etc.
The book is a bit tedious at times. But just when you start to get tired with the minute details or long monologues Mailer engages you with a musing on communism or an interesting anecdote.
I recommend Harlot's Ghost whole heartedly. It is not a typical spy novel. It is worth reading if only for the larger than life characters that make appearances in the novel - the Kennedy brothers, Castro, Drezhnisky, Marilyn Monroe, Sam Giancana, Allen Dulles, Howard Hunt and even Lenny Bruce.
The novel has moments of danger, intrigue, occasional boredom of routine CIA tasks, improbable hypotheses of historical events, and, for me, some real eye-openers of US and world policies at the time. Vivid portraits of Fidel Castro and Jack and Robert Kennedy. Of course, it didn't take just one sitting to finish this book, I had breaks for smaller books in between. And yet, the plot was strong enough for me to be able to keep it in memory throughout.
They differ, though, greatly in writing style: The Company is brutal in syntax and language; Harlot's Ghost is deeply intellectual and framed within the profound relationship between protagonist, Harrick Hubbard and Kittredge Montague.