A Mysterious Country

The Grace and Fragility of American Democracy

By: Norman Mailer

Narrated by: Lloyd Floyd

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Published on the centenary of Norman Mailer’s birth, a timely and urgent call to preserve our democracy

From his bestselling first novel, The Naked and the Dead, to his last work, American democracy was a lifelong project for Norman Mailer. It was his grand theme. Nearly all of his books touched on the pros and cons, the strengths and weaknesses, the grace (to use his word) and fragility of the American experiment as well as the threats to it—from autocratic leaders and a complacent citizenry, from violent protest and radical conservative assaults on it, from “soft fascism” and the ills of racism and poverty. In the sharp and impassioned language of a political Cassandra and with the eye of a novelist and journalist, he explored the underlying psychological, social, and economic causes of the country’s fragile polity and offered urgent prescriptions for its reinvigoration.

A Mysterious Country is a carefully selected collection of Mailer’s most incisive—and sometimes remarkably prophetic—commentary on American democracy and what must be done to safeguard it. The anthology draws on both published and unpublished sources, from Mailer’s great works of narrative nonfiction and novels as well as essays, interviews, letters, speeches, and talk show appearances. It includes pungent remarks on every president from FDR through George W. Bush, as well as correspondence with several. Throughout, what shines through is Mailer’s passion for our democratic project—as well as the freedom that comes with it—and a keen awareness of its potential for failure, its virtues, and what is required of us to keep it intact.

©2023 Norman Mailer Enterprises, LLC (P)2023 Skyhorse Audio

Critic reviews

“This impressive volume comes at a crucial time for the United States where democracy is threatened by a looming fascism fueled by runaway capitalism and ubiquitous digital technologies. A Mysterious Country shows the breadth and nuance of Mailer’s political thought that might even be more timely today than in the twentieth century. Smartly curated and significant, it is not only for students of Mailer but for those who seek a critical and granular understanding of the soul of the United States. A Mysterious Country is a must-read.”—G. R. Lucas, PhD, Professor of English, Middle Georgia State University, coeditor, Norman Mailer: Works and Days

“Norman Mailer’s nearly lifelong preoccupation with the fear that American democracy could be displaced by fascism is on full display in this outstanding book. Anyone who wants to understand the present crisis of America should read this superb collection of his insights.”—Robert S. McElvaine, author of The Times They Were a-Changin’: 1964, the Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn

"In this anthology, Norman Mailer reminds us of what a great writer he was—and many other things. He was a contrarian historian of our times, endlessly curious, as well as a psychic eye of a cyclops monster, ready to say the most outrageous things to provoke our thinking, a formidable debater and opponent who made even neutral folk want to fight him. Mailer was a conscience for this country, a fearless gunslinger of our national psyche. At the very least, although he may infuriate you and make you angry, at other times, he will enlighten you. His is a new way of seeing. What more can a writer give us?”—Oliver Stone