NORMAN MAILER'S successful first novel, The Naked and the Dead, catapulted him permanently into the public limelight. Ever since then, the author's explanations of the evolution of the hip consciousness of the 1960's, his battle with the feminists, his Pulitzer Prize-winning later books (Armies of the Night and The Executioner's Song), and his stabbing of his second wife have all contributed to the veil of mystery and doubt surrounding him. Hilary Mills does an excellent job of clearing away the gossip and rumors and presents an orderly, well-documented, thoughtful chronicle of Mailer's life through which one begins to understand "what makes Norman run."

Mills chooses to begin her biography of the man whose career Antole Broyard has described as "a brawl between his talent and his exhibitionism" with a dramatic retelling of Mailer's appearance at the murder trial of Jack Henry Abbot, the ex-convict whose writings Mailer had promoted. After recounting the antagonistic press conference, where obscenities and insults were exchanged--a typical situation for the author--Mills summarizes Mailer in a list of promotional headlines, from "Village Voice Co-Founder" to "Husband of Six Wives." One is prepared for a book that merely rehashes sensational events and doesn't delve any deeper than news stories and rumors. But Mills quickly dispels this expectation with her disciplined approach to explaining Mailer's paradoxical personality.

Whether Mailer's work goes down "as a strange aberrations flash...or as one of the most seminal and enduring voices in contemporary literary history remains to be determined," Mills notes in the final chapter. But it is certain that the author's life alone will be remembered for its enormous and diverse undertakings. Arranged in strictly chronological form, the biography seems to gather together all of Mailer's activities--starting with his career as a Harvard engineering major--together with hundreds of quotes from wives, editors, friends and the like. This technique creates a many-sided view of the man, rather than the biographer's own interpretation.

Mills traces Mailer's desire to be accepted by the WASP establishment to his career at Harvard, where the Jews were sequestered together very much outside the Harvard establishment. Although Mailer wants to be the quintessential American, he has remained interested in his Brooklyn Jewish past, writing occasionally for Commentary magazine. Without attempting to reconcile this tension, Mills shows Mailer's underlying sensitivity to ethnic roots through events in both his private life and in his writing. For example, she observes that Mailer intermingles his speech with Southern drawls and Irish brogues, concealing his roots.

Mills's technique works particularly well in the chapter on Mailer's much-publicized arguments with feminist leaders. Attacked for caustic comments up to and including "Women should be kept in cages" (on an Orson Welles talk show), Mailer maintains that it's harder for women to be feminine after the technological advances. Mills quotes him pleading with women not to "quit the womb." Abbie Hoffman says Mailer "sees feminism as the decline of civilization" but describes how Mailer's own social habits counter his chauvinistic image. But Mills also quotes Germaine Greer, who said Mailer "pushed himself into the feminist debate because it actually made him feel more masculine, more heroic." There are no answers, but the combination lets the reader see Mailer a bit more clearly.

Similarly, Mills doesn't resolve the paradox of Mailer's belief in the necessity for personal violence (as reflected in his interest in boxing) and his anti-war activism, but she offers speculation as to how the two sides developed and how they can coexist in Mailer.

Mailer's subject matter provides a considerable sociological analysis. His insightful 1957 essay "The White Negro" is a prophetic vision of the hip consciousness that would develop in the next decade. Mailer said that the specter of the atom bomb and the fear of our collective death produced "the American hipster" who was predominantly religious and dealt with the fears "by seeking out the rebellious imperatives of the self." This piece also marked the beginning of Mailer's preoccupation with the New Left, which not only influenced radicals like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin but also involved him personally in politics. He participated in the 1968 march on the Pentagon and in 1969 ran for mayor of New York.

SUCH HISTORICAL BACKGROUND combines easily with the biography because Mailer's own writing was always reflecting the character of the country. Working for numerous magazines, he covered John F. Kennedy '40 and the space program, the 1968 and 1972 Presidential conventions. His response to his feminist detractors, The Prisoner of Sex, originally appeared in Harper's magazine. As Mills says of his Armies of the Night, Mailer's report of the march on the Pentagon:

Mailer had managed to encompass the spectrum or American sensibility within himself. It was a sensibility that only the most expansive, sensitive and egotistical of American writers could claim to possess.

With his cutting, analytical commentaries on the Vietnam war, the American presidency, the beatnik generation and the boxing match between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston, Mailer helped usher in a new writing style, the New Journalism, in which the reporter becomes an active participant in the story. According to Willie Morris, an editor of Harper's in 1968, Mailer was "creating the language" by his new use of words, sentences, and obscenities.

As a balanced presentation, the book also gives equal time to Mailer's stormy personal life, which now boasts six wives and eight children. It recounts in detail how Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, an episode that catapulted him into the public eye as much as his books. Mills demonstrates how Mailer's attempt "to make a revolution in the consciousness of our time" was exercised not only in his writing but also through his personal, uninhibited, impulsive actions. There is no dearth of colorful detail--she records brawls at the Village Gate in New York City, drunk speeches at his 50th birthday party and belligerent comments on talk shows and interviews.

Though the biography does not make Mailer's mystique any more attractive than reading his works might suggest, it does provide a new sensitivity to both the author and his literature. Mills doesn't tell you what to think of the man who works with incredible efficiency under deadlines and makes mythical heroes out of Marilyn Monroe and Gary Gilmore. But what she tells you is enough, at least, to enable the reader to speculate on his absurdity.