Reviews of The Naked and the Dead
“The most ambitious novel to be written about the recent conflict... the most ruthlessly honest.”
David Dempsey, The New York Times Book Review
“...his most successful, by far, was his first. The Naked and the Dead spent 62 weeks on the list in 1948 and 1949, 19 of those weeks at No. 1.”
“The best novel to come out of the... war, perhaps the best book to come out of any war.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Best novel yet about World War II.”
“Brutal, agonizing, astonishingly thoughtful.”
Newsweek
“Nightmarish masterpiece of realism.”
Cleveland News
“Vibrant with life, abundant with real people, full of memorable scenes. To call it merely a great book about the war would be to minimize its total achievement.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“The most important American novel since Moby Dick.”
Providence Journal Review
“Tremendously good… A powerful, well-planned and excitingly intelligent book: a far more remarkable achievement than there is space to describe.”
The Guardian (UK)
“[Mailer] left a huge footprint on American letters.”