Mailer2.jpg
Hello all. I’m a new face around here. My name is Steve Pollak and I blog about books at Jewish Literary Review.com.  

No, that’s not my picture. That’s Norman Mailer and, as you know from previous posts on this site, he died on Saturday.

For my first post here at Jewlicious, I thought I’d bring your attention to Mailer’s self-written obit. He actually wrote it 28 years before he died.

Back in 1979, Boston magazine asked Mailer and a few others to compose their own obituaries. As you might expect, Mailer made fun of himself, his critics and, of course, all those ex-wives. The magazine republished the piece yesterday on their blog.

Here’s a sample:  

At present, interest revolves around the estate. Executors have warned that Mailer, although earning an average income of one and a half million dollars a year, has had to meet an annual overhead of two million, three hundred thousand, of which two million, two hundred and fifty thousand went in child support, alimony, and back IRS payments. It is estimated that his liabilities outweigh his assets by eight million, six hundred thousand.

When asked, on occasion why he married so often, the former Pulitzer Prize winner replied, “To get divorced. You don’t know anything about a woman until you meet her in court.” 

The rest of Mailer’s prescient wisdom can be found on the Boston Daily blog. It’s definitely worth a look. Curiously, he left out anything about where he wanted relatives to sit shiva or who would say Kaddish. Then again, he was always somewhat ambiguous about being a Jew.

Cross posted at JewishLiteraryReview.com.

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14 Comments

  • Hi Steve Pollak, who is not my accountant but has the same name! I’m waving hello from Philadelphia. I look forward to reading you.

    ck, luring people with your “3 in. wobbler”!..I am so holding back on that. It is begging for commentary, but I will behave and refrain.

  • thanks, giyoret. i look forward to being read.

    as for ck’s three inch wobbler, well, he is jewish after all.

  • Welcome to the funny farm steve and thanks for this post. I heard on the BBC an interview with him several months before he died. He believed in reincarnation, so perhaps he is already back on dry earth poking fun.

  • I’m sitting on my hands….help….the keyboard is calling me……..Repeat after me, Giyoret: “This is not Jezebel, this is not Jezebel…no comments on the wobbler!!”

  • A 3 inch wobbler is a lure for fishing. It’s not a magic wand. It’s not a pocket rocket. It’s not a dirty Sanchez. It’s not a Rabbit Habit. It’s not a Velvet Caress. It’s not a Sonic Ring. It’s not a Mississippi Steamroller. It’s not a Rascal. It’s not a Laya Spot. Those are available at Babeland.com. A 3 inch wobbler is available at Bubba’s Bait and Tackle. You ladies really need to get, you know, REAL boyfriends.

  • No. A Wobbler is a fishing lure. It is painted to look like a fish and the bib makes it float up and down. The larger the bib, the lower it dives. Usually there are two or three hooks attached, but no bait, or flies or anything. One does not use Wobblers for fly fishing and the hooks preclude it’s use for anything intimate that isn’t in the realm of s&m or weird fetish sex.

    Friggin weirdos.

  • Well, ck, English is only my third language, and the translation I knew for wobbler was a different one, but having read your description, I know what you’re referring to. The bf goes fishing, but as long as he believes that he’s never seen me wearing boots in six years (note: I’ve got about thirty pairs of boots) and also can’t tell the difference between “marooon” and “coconut” brown, I don’t exactly feel the need to know what every part of his fishing equipment is called 🙂

  • But it’s so hard to FIND a real boyfriend, ck, in a sea of 3 inch wobblers………

    *heavy sigh*