Norman Mailer (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)

Early Life

Norman Kingsley Mailer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Isaac Barnett Mailer and Fanny Schneider Mailer. He was an only child. After his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1927, Norman had a calm childhood playing neighborhood sports, building model airplanes, and excelling in public schools. His innate intelligence (an intelligence quotient measured at 165 in school and about 150 later in the Army) propelled him to college. At age sixteen, he applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for study in aeronautical engineering, but the...

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