Photo: Ray Howard /AP Photo/TT (1969)
Sample of authors
Mailer, Norman
The American author, journalist and public debater Norman (in reality Nachem Malek) Mailer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, but grew up in Brooklyn. In social terms he came from the Jewish lower middle class. After obtaining a degree in engineering at the University of Harvard, he participated during the final phase of the Second World War in the battles in the Pacific Ocean, among other...
Literary figures
Herbie (Eberhardt) Kruger
Gender: Male
Born in Germany, as a teenager he was recruited by the Americans and eventually became a spy for Great Britain. He built up a large spy-ring in East Germany, but, when it was exposed, he had to fight to save his colleagues. Now, the clumsily heavily-built Eberhard ‘Herbie’ Kruger is seen as an old relic, but in John Gardner’s novels he shows that he still has a lot to contribute.