In Another Place: With and Without My Father, Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer, Susan Mailer's father, was among the most celebrated, talented, and controversial writers of the 20th Century. The Naked and the Dead (1948), inspired by his experience in World War II, was a bestseller and made him famous at the age of 25. Notoriously combative and egotistical, her father enjoyed a good fight both physically and verbally. Whether cheered or booed, Mailer was front and center in America's cultural battles for more than 50 years. He married six times and was father to nine children. Susan, born in 1949, is the eldest. Susan's parents separated when she was a baby. She grew up shuttling between her mother's home in Mexico and New York. Later she would marry a Chilean activist, spending the majority of her adult life in Chile, where she is a practicing psychoanalyst. In Another Place tells the story of her intense and complex relationship with her father, her five stepmothers and nine siblings, and the joys and pains of being part of the large Mailer clan. It is a tale of separation, and of the rewards and struggles of living in two very different cultures. Of being someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, always longing for a life . . . In Another Place.

About the Author :
Susan Mailer, a 1971 Barnard graduate, finished her graduate studies in Clinical Psychology in Mexico, becoming a psychoanalyst in 1992. She has a private practice in Santiago, Chile where she lives with her husband, three grown children and grandchildren. She also teaches and supervises. A co-founder of the new Psychoanalytic Association of Santiago, her articles have been published in books and in various Latin American journals.

Review :
"Susan has written a memoir of her life as Norman's eldest using her skills as a therapist... in facing an often chaotic and turbulent childhood." - London Times "The author and daughter of Norman Mailer says 'swagger and gruffness' were part of the novelist's nature, but he was also 'kind and sensitive'" - Wall Street Journal "Susan "finally understood his message." She would write and write she does in a stark, non-varnished style that draws the reader in, even telling readers who thought they knew all of Norman Mailer's life that there is still much to learn." - The Mailer Review "In this beautifully structured memoir Susan is able to write clearly and honestly about that murky landscape between adulation and adoration of the brilliant writer on one end of the spectrum, to the distinctly human and deeply flawed father on the other. - Kaylie Jones, Author of Lies My Mother Never Told Me. "With word upon word and in story after story Susan Mailer has produced a nuanced portrait of a father. A task almost impossible with a man who so thrived on controversy, In Another Place could only come to us through the penetrating eyes and forgiving heart of a loving child. - Greg Bellow, author of Saul Bellow's Heart "Written with deep honesty and insight In Another Place brings into sharp focus Mailer's genius, his foibles as a father, and the complexities of being his daughter. Susan's story is compelling." - Gay Talese "In Another Place brings us to many new places in the Mailer universe. Written with tenderness, acuity and unadorned psychological depth, Susan Mailer´s memoir is a powerful look at the literary world." - Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin. "Brisk, enthralling(...) full of dramatic family scenes, most of them heretofore unknown. I wish I had her memoir in hand when writing my biography." - J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life.