A provocateur, a rebel, a performer, and a true American, Norman Mailer never stopped giving people something to talk about. This documentary goes beyond the Mailer of the bookshelves and NY Times best seller list to Mailer the social critic, family man, filmmaker, and lover. Here's a look into the life of a complex, intellectual, working class hero. Born in Long Branch, New Jersey and growing up in Brooklyn NY, Norman Mailer began his long career as a writer at Harvard University. From there he went on to serve in the U.S. army in World War II, which became the basis for his break out novel, The Naked and the Dead. He wrote over 60 books and covered every major event in U.S. history including the Apollo 11 launch, the deaths of John F Kennedy and his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, the 1968 Democratic National Convention and subsequent riot, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement march on the Pentagon, Muhammad Ali and George Forman's Rumble in the Jungle fight in Zaire, and many more. He didn't only write about these events, he lived them and experienced them from the frontlines. He delved deep into the lives and psyches of the famous and the infamous- from Marilyn Monroe to Hitler.  With never before seen footage of Adele Morales Mailer's startling revelations after being stabbed by her husband. Featuring unseen footage and interviews from wives and lovers, enemies and admirers, his children and the man himself.