Norman Mailer, R.I.P.

Annoying, full of shit, and absolutely irreplaceable: Norman Mailer is dead at age 84. He lacked Hemingway's "built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector" (but then, so did Hemingway at times), but no one since has had Hemingway's early fearlessness and constant ambition. Bellow was the greater genius by far, Roth is his own unruly animal, and hundreds have written better novels and journalism—but none with the dedication, flair and outsized personality (which sometimes achieved outsized results) of Mailer.