January 6, 2026
Nobel? More like No-bell
The Oddest Couple in American Literature: Part II
Mailer says Marilyn book killed his Nobel, Schiller dubbed Zelig of scandal
TLDR: Mailer’s Marilyn Monroe bestseller outsold his other work, and he claims it cost him a Nobel Prize. The crowd split over Schiller—grifter vs archivist—while paywall-savvy users shared an archive link and debated whether the book was sharp storytelling or opportunistic hype.
Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller formed the strangest literary duo in America, and boy did it sell. Their Marilyn Monroe book outsold everything Mailer ever wrote, and he later claimed it cost him the Nobel Prize. Schiller, a Zelig-like operator, keeps popping up everywhere: the O.J. Simpson murder trial, ringside at Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier’s “Thrilla in Manila,” even courting a memoir with titles like “The Original Zelig” and “The Lies I Told to Get the Truth.” The piece paints Schiller as indefatigable—photographer, filmmaker, book packager—always with a good eye and a better angle.
Comments lit up with sellout saga energy. One camp rolled eyes at Mailer’s “No-bell Prize” lament, calling it sour grapes; another argued Schiller turned Mailer into a pop-culture meteor, and the literary gods don’t reward meteors. Camera nerds fixated on the Rolleiflex cameo, while cynics dubbed Schiller the Forrest Gump of scandal. Others defended him as a relentless archivist who gets stories others miss. The paywall-savvy showed up, too: brudgers dropped an archive link, sparking a side-thread on “read it free.” The juiciest fight? Whether the Marilyn book was smart storytelling or pure opportunism—cue jokes about Monroe haunting the Nobel committee.
Key Points
- •“Marilyn: A Biography” by Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller sold more copies than any other work by Mailer.
- •Mailer believed the biography harmed his chances of receiving a Nobel Prize.
- •The author profiled Schiller for Vanity Fair in 1996 after the O.J. Simpson trial, where Schiller had a behind-the-scenes role.
- •Schiller was present and photographing at the “Thrilla in Manila” boxing match.
- •A proposed memoir about Schiller with titles like “The Original Zelig” and “The Lies I Told to Get the Truth” failed to sell.