From his bestselling first novel, The Naked and the Dead, to his last work, American democracy was a lifelong project for Norman Mailer. It was his grand theme. Nearly all of his books touched on the pros and cons, the strengths and weaknesses, the grace (to use his word) and fragility of the American experiment as well as the threats to it--from autocratic leaders and a complacent citizenry, from violent protest and radical conservative assaults on it, from "soft fascism" and the ills of racism and poverty.