Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventionsof 1968

by Norman Mailer

Book Overview

In this landmark work of journalism, Norman Mailer reports on the presidential conventions of 1968, the turbulent year from which today's bitterly divided country arose. The Vietnam War was raging;... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590172965
• ISBN13: 9781590172964
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Miami and the Siege of Chicago

Mailer is amazing. His hybrid novel/historical account method works spectacularly here. It seems he learned from his earlier foray into this style of work, "Armies of the Night," which, despite winning the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, was chunky and too focused on Mailer. Here, and with great acumen, Mailer personalizes the account where it bolsters, and no where else. The reader benefits from a retelling of the events by an observer as honed as Mailer, and for me personally - born nearly 20 years after the events contained therein - I can look to this book as a thorough resource for attempting to be "in the moment" at these conventions. I'd say this is an absolute must-read for political history buffs.

Mailer's Genius

We've all heard the remark used too often to describe an egocentric's prerogative to to be self-consumed and reticent to acknowledge the rights and opinions of fellow citizens: " It's his (her)world, we're just living in it..." There are infinite variations and elaborations , all headed for the same punchline no matter the navigation the teller chooses, with hardly an improvement on the insight. The phrase, in fact, is stale and in need of retirement. The phase had been used recently in a chat I had recently with someone regarding the re-release of Norman Mailer's account of the 1968 Republican and Democratic Conventions, and the mention made me want reach for the imaginary lever for the equally imaginary trap door down which the utterer of petrified phrases would fall, the bottom chamber of which they would remain until they appreciate that cliches are no substitute for an original aside, a choice metaphor, a wild ride of associations that prove that one has been paying attention to the events about them. Paying attention is precisely what the literary journalist in his nonfiction writings, and what Miami and the Seige of Chicago (blessedly reissued by NYR Books)shows is that for all his self-obsession, Mailer was no mere narcissistic punk considering the world his realm and its inhabitants his subjects. What gives the narrative its tension is Mailer's knack for addressing the world as he thinks it used to be what it ought to become and then confronting blunt facts that won't bend to his wishes, give in to his whims, follow a script he might have written. Mailer is a counter puncher, to use his parlance, someone who reacts with a mind that brings details , thesis and counter thesis , call and response into spinning loops of image-saturated language. Miami/Seige , like a good amount of the nonfiction Mailer wrote during the sixties and seventies, is a richly nuanced , feverishly grandiloquent mid century reversal of Whitman's latter day desire to contain multitudes and find himself in each breath , phrase and circumstance of every American's story; Mailer, an early idealist who wanted to forge a revolution in the consciousness of the nation, as he announced in Advertisements for Myself, refuses bitterness and despair when his designs become moot and embraces ambivalence and irony instead. This makes for a desireable place from which to wrestle with the things that irritate his senses and insult his intelligence.

VINTAGE MAILER

What is striking about 1968 in that political sense is that Daley of Chicago, a Democrat, is the recipient of more wrath from liberal writers than Richard Nixon. You remember him: The guy who went on to win it all that year, expanded the war, and broke a myriad of laws in the scandals that come under one word, Watergate. Mailer, who writes with the talented journalist's eye, beats up on Daley more than Nixon. I guess you couldn't do anything about Nixon. It's like going to a football game and heckling the head coach of your favorite team: The guy who is giving the game away. KEVIN FARRELL

Great piece of journalistic work

This book is the essential companion to The Armies Of The Night--it tells about the conventions of 1968 in Miami & Chicago, & how the latter turned into a riot. Unlike Armies Of The Night, however, the writing isn't peaking, & Mailer isn't on the front. Instead, he's being a journalist ( & a good one at that!) For anybody interested in this side of American history, this book is a must. The part on Nixon being elected in Miami is the weakest part--read it quickly. The real beef lies in the second part on the Democrat convention in Chicago. You'll get shocks, laughs, everything you've come to expect from Norman Mailer.