“The Naked and the Dead”, Norman Mailer published his first
novel at the age of 25, on today’s date, May 4th, 1948. Born in 1923 in New Jersey, raised in
Brooklyn, he attended Harvard and joined the Army during World War II. After leaving the Army in 1946, he went to
study at the Sorbonne, where he wrote his first novel based on his military
experiences.
