When The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948, the novel earned Norman Mailer overwhelming popular and critical acclaim. In fact, it claimed the top spot on the The New York Times "Bestseller List" for eleven consecutive weeks. Most critics, like Atlantic reviewer C. J. Rolo, considered Ihe novel to be "the most impressive piece of fiction to date about Americans in the Second World War."

David Denipsey asserted in The New York Times that it is "undoubtedly the most ambitious novel to be written about the recent conflict, it is also the most ruthlessly honest and in scope and in integrity compares favorable with the best that followed World War I." Richard Match contended in his review in the New York Herald Tribune, "With this one astonishing book ... [Mailer] joins the ranks of major American novelists."

Several reviews focused on the novel's realistic account of the war. Time considered it "distinguished primarily for simple realism, a forthright, almost childlike honesty, a command of ordinary speech, a cool and effortless narrative style." Some commentators deemed the language and subject matter shocking. A reviewer for Kirkus Reviews maintained that the novel was:

a brilliant book—but one that makes such harrowing reading, and which is written with such intensity, such bald realism, such unrestrained accuracy of detail in speech and thought, that all but the tough-skinned will turn from it, feeling reluctant to look again on the baring of man's inner beings under stress of jungle warfare [The Naked and the Dead is] an unpleasant experience, but one that makes an unforgettable impression.

In the Library Journal, Donald Wasson contends: "This is an exceptionally fine book ... the language employed is very strong and so accurately reported that it probably will offend many and may create problems in handling."

While some critics deride the novel's length and wordiness, most praise what Ira Wolfert in the Nation calls Mailer's "remarkable gift for storytelling." Moreover, Wolfert insists that the novel proves Mailer has "poetry in him and ideas."

A few critics, however, offer mixed reviews of the novel, finding fault most often with Mailer's execution of the novel's themes. In the New Yorker John Lardner agrees that Mailer "tells a good story powerfully and well," but finds that it "shares the tendency of most current novels toward undersim-plification—it is too long and it is too complicated ... [while] its dialogue is true and straightforward." Dempsey points to an "overanalysis of motive" and a "failure of reach." While he considers the book "substantial," Maxwell Geismar, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, maintains that there is "no real balance of the dramatic forces in it, just as there is a final lack of emotional impact."

As Dempsey notes, the publication of The Naked and the Dead "bears witness to a new and significant talent among American novelists," an opinion that has prevailed, for the most part, throughout Mailer's career. The novel's critical reputation remains strong, but the response to his subsequent works has been mixed. Mailer had a difficult time living up to the promise and popularity of The Naked and the Dead. In his autobiographical Advertisements for Myself, published in 1959, Mailer admits to the pressures he faced after the success of his first novel: "I had the freak of luck to start high on the mountain, and go down sharp while others were passing me."

In the years following the publication of The Naked and the Dead, Mailer earned notoriety as a dissident, a social critic, and a celebrity. He did garner praise for his forays into nonfiction, evidence with the highly acclaimed The Armies of the Night (1969) and The Executioner's Song (1980). Mailer's experiments with different literary forms, his engrossing studies of human nature and American society, and his realistic prose style have cemented his reputation as one of the major American writers of the twentieth century.