Toasting a Legend

Let's raise a glass to the late, great Norman Mailer. Perhaps, since it's Mailer we're celebrating, we should raise ten or twelve glasses each, but not all of us have his stamina or prowess with potables.

Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Executioner's Song, about the killer Gary Gilmore, remains one of my favorites, a battering ram of an expedition into the darkness of one human mind. I last read the novel in the 90s. Some passages still frighten me so much that I haven't read the book since (particularly his descriptions of Gilmore's cremation). It's a testament to Mailer's skill that I'm terrified to go there again.

The Saint, the kids and I will be visiting Captain Ed Novak (and his family) today, who, when last we mentioned him, was Lieutenant Ed Novak. We will undoubtedly raise a glass or two (but not ten), perhaps even to Mailer. We're long overdue for glass-raising.