John Koblin examines Bill Clinton's angry response to Vanity Fair's recent profile of him. "The responses from the former president and his camp are very saddening in their own ways,” according to VF editor Graydon Carter. Plus: Ana Marie Cox joins Radar.

Leon Neyfakh reports from Los Angeles' Book Expo America where Random House's new C.E.O., Markus Dohle said, “I am looking forward to becoming a real New Yorker."

Spencer Morgan talks to Rip Torn about Norman Mailer: “Norman always dressed to the nines... He always had a suit, vest, tie, sometimes a hat. And so behind the lamppost, he turned to me and said, ‘Why you always dressed like a fuckin’ bum! Dress up, put on a nice shirt and tie, and you’ll get more respect.’"

Plus: George Gurley at 40... Eliot Spitzer's new job... and Sex and Our City.

Brett Ratner is not allowed to use the trees in New York City parks to dangle 80-pound starlet Olivia Thirlby from for a sex scene. [NY Daily News]

Sarah Jessica Parker is down on the New York she helped create. [NY Mag]  read more »

At around 7:45 p.m. on Monday, April 28, writer Carl Bernstein was mingling at the cocktail hour before the PEN Literary Awards at the Museum of Natural History, Coca Cola in hand, looking very healthy. “I ride a bike and listen to a lot of music,” he said. “I mostly listen to classical but also rock.  read more »

Lose an editor; gain a media property. John Koblin details every maneuver in one very busy week for Rupert Murdoch. This piece has everything: The Wall Street Journal, Marcus Brauchli, Newsday, The New York Times, and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.  read more »

Sixty-six-year-old Carole Mallory has had many famous lovers, among them, she says, Robert De Niro, Sean Connery, Richard Gere and Rod Stewart. “I rejected Jack Nicholson,” she told Pub Crawl in a phone interview Friday. “And I enjoyed Warren Beatty.”

Towering above them all was the late Norman Mailer, whom Ms. Mallory, a former model, actress and journalist, met at Elaine’s one night in 1983 and dated for nine years thereafter.  read more »

Members of Norman Mailer's family are in the process of developing a new writer's colony based at Mailer's longtime home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it was announced at Carnegie Hall this evening at the end of a memorial honoring the late writer.

Lawrence Schiller, who collaborated with Mailer on a number of books and counted him among his closest friends, said that an advisory board, consisting of Günter Grass, Joan Didion, William Kennedy, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, has been formed.  read more »

Curious how long it takes to put together a memorial befitting an author of Norman Mailer's stature? Oh, about five months. It was announced today that Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, Tina Brown, Sean Penn, William Kennedy, amongst others, will takes turns fondly recollecting the "id and (the imp) of American Literature" at the April 9 event at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Mailer passed away on Nov. 10 of last year. The memorial, hosted by Charlie Rose, is open to the public, but free tickets are required; they can be picked up only after 11 a.m. on the day of the memorial at Carnegie Hall.

Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie (St. Martin’s Press, $23.95) is the latest from “gender expert” Susan Shapiro Barash. I picked it up out of idle curiosity (are women’s reasons for lying really different from men’s?) and would have put it straight back down (the writing is shockingly bad), but I was struck by the bold amorality of Ms. Barash’s approach: “I neither condemn nor condone the lies women tell,” she solemnly declares. Turns out that’s a lie. In fact, she thinks fibs are fab. Here’s the final sentence of her book, the sum of the wisdom she’s squeezed from “extensive personal interviews with women and experts in the field of psychology and counseling”:

“In my research for Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets, I’ve come to recognize lying as an inestimable weapon in the female arsenal as women search for personal retribution and satisfaction.” Inestimable weapon? Female arsenal? Personal retribution? Looks like the gender wars are heating up.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer just made his debut on a Hillary Clinton conference call just now, along with New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, to discuss economic development.

When the line was opened up for questions, the first one was directed at Spitzer, about his plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, a policy he withdrew after Clinton ran into a world of trouble for refusing to criticize it at a debate.  read more »

Norman Mailer's widow, Norris Church Mailer, is writing a memoir that will be published by Random House and edited by David Ebershoff, Publisher's Weekly reports. Mr. Ebershoff also edited Mailer's last four books, including his last, The Castle in the Forest.

The book was sold to Random House by John Taylor “Ike” Williams, who works in the literary and dramatic rights branch of Boston-based lawfirm Fish & Richardson, and who has served as Ms. Church Mailer's literary agent for years. Mr. Williams, who did not immediately respond to request for comment, is also one of the legal representatives for the Mailer Estate.  read more »