On God: An Uncommon Conversation Book

The final book from Norman Mailer, towering figure of American literature, in which he offers his concept of the nature of God

“I feel no attachment, whatsoever, to organized religion” wrote Norman Mailer. “I see God, rather, as a Creator, as the greatest artist. I see human beings as His most developed artworks.” And in this collection of moving, amusing, probing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years before his death, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism. He presents instead a view of our world as one created by an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of determined opposition by contrary powers in the universe with whom war is waged for the souls of humans. Mailer weighs the possibilities of “intelligent design,” at the same time avowing that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments–because adultery, he avers, may be a lesser evil than others suffered in a bad marriage; and he holds that technology was the Devil’s most brilliant creation. In short, Mailer is original and unpredictable in this inspiring verbal journey, in which “God needs us as much as we need God."

Praise for On God:

“[Displays] the glory of an original mind in full provocation.”
–USA Today

“[Mailer’s] theology is not theoretical to him. After eight decades, it is what he believes. He expects no adherents, and does not profess to be a prophet, but he has worked to forge his beliefs into a coherentcatechism.”
–New York

“At once illuminating and exciting . . . a chance to see Mailer’s intellect as well as his lively conversational style of speech.”
–American Jewish Life

The Barnes & Noble Review

How much more interesting than the cut-and-dried atheist is the generous and freewheeling heretic; even the hardest heads in the current secretariat of nonbelief (Sam Harris, say, or Christopher Hitchens) might have trouble denying that it takes more imagination to invent a deity than to explode one. But real heresies are thin on the ground these days: depending on which magazine you read, the last word on faith belongs either to Pope Benedict XVI or to Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. At this point in the debate, to quote a noted religious authority, "You're either with us or against us."

Norman Mailer, bless him, this fall trundled his homemade God onto the field of combat. With his recent passing reverberating through the reading world, there is no better time to charge into these conversations with English professor and veteran Mailerite Michael Lennon, as the late lion lays out his own very personal vision of the divine economy. The destiny of souls, the wages of sin, the potency of saints, the possible immortality of dogs -- it's all here.