Introduction

"In Another Place brings us to many remarkable new places in the Mailer universe. Written with tenderness, acuity and unadorned psychological depth, Susan Mailer's memoir is a powerful look at the literary world." --Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin

Norman Mailer, Susan Mailer's father, was among the most celebrated, talented, and controversial writers of the 20th Century. The Naked and the Dead (1948), inspired by his experience in World War II, was a bestseller and made him famous at the age of 25. Notoriously combative and egotistical, her father enjoyed a good ?ght both physically and verbally. Whether cheered or booed, Mailer was front and center in America's cultural battles for more than 50 years. He married six times and was father to nine children. Susan, born in 1949, is the eldest.

Susan's parents separated when she was a baby. She grew up shuttling between her mother's home in Mexico and New York. Later she would marry a Chilean activist, spending the majority of her adult life in Chile, where she is a practicing psychoanalyst.

In Another Place tells the story of her intense and complex relationship with her father, her ?ve stepmothers and nine siblings, and the joys and pains of being part of the large Mailer clan. It is a tale of separation, and of the rewards and struggles of living in two very di?erent cultures. Of being someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, always longing for a life . . . In Another Place.

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Excerpt

Excerpt from Chapter 9
Diamond Eyes.



I was eight years old, and my sister Danielle, Dad’s second daughter and Adele’s first, was nine months. I was playing in the living room next to the chimney when Dad walked in and asked me to step into the library. “Hey, Diamond Eyes, come in here. Let’s have a talk.” ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. In what ways does growing up in Mexico and New York affect the author? Do you think the author’s experience is helpful to readers who are bicultural and bilingual?

2. How is the author’s sense of self impacted by her father’s fame?

3. The author is a psychoanalyst. How does her knowledge inform the way she presents her relationship to her parents, in particular to her father?

4. How did the Mailer siblings manage to be close considering they are the offspring of 6 different mothers?

5. Writing the memoir, do you think the author was inspired by her father? In what ways?

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