Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • In the Red Light

  • A History of the Republican Convention in 1964
  • By: Norman Mailer
  • Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
  • Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

In the Red Light

By: Norman Mailer
Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £2.99

Buy Now for £2.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

There was entertainment at the Republican Gala on Sunday night. The climax was a full marching band of bagpipers. They must have been hired for the week since one kept hearing them on the following days, and at all odd times, heard them even in my hotel room at four am for a few were marching in the streets of San Francisco, sounding through the night, giving off the barbaric evocation of the Scots, all valor, wrath, firmitude, and treachery - the wild complete treachery of the Scots finding its way into the sound of the pipes. They were a warning of the fever in the heart of the Wasp.

In the summer of 1964, Esquire sent celebrated writer Norman Mailer to San Francisco to cover the Republican National Convention, where ultra-conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona was expected to take the Presidential nomination. Acerbic, unrelenting, and as sweeping in scope as it is deep in examination, In the Red Light firmly establishes Mailer as the leading literary social critic of his time - and, perhaps, of any time.

In the Red Light was originally published in Esquire, November 1964.

©2016 Norman Mailer (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Miami and the Siege of Chicago cover art
Mind of an Outlaw cover art
Advertisements for Myself cover art
The Armies of the Night cover art
The Fight cover art
Black No More cover art
The Road Taken cover art
Mr. Sammler's Planet cover art
The Red Caddy cover art
Fugitive Days cover art
Dreamers and Deceivers cover art
Hitler, Mussolini, and Me cover art
The Mimic Men cover art
Season of the Witch cover art
Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of American Leadership cover art
To Jerusalem and Back cover art

What listeners say about In the Red Light

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Eerie parallels with today's America

Although it's over 50 years old, Mailer's account of the 1964 Republican convention at which Barry Goldwater was selected as the candidate of a new, Western, and far-right movement cannot be heard today without finding numerous parallels with today's America. Like Trump's supporters, Goldwater's were overwhelmingly white, suspicious of the mainstream media, fearful of the rise of black power through the civil rights movement, and determined to reverse immigration trends, particularly from Latin America. Mailer was no fan of Lyndon Johnson, either, and he was able to see how Goldwater's extremism could appeal to people who were fed up with what they saw as an American becoming synthetic, technophilic, liberal, and soulless. On the other hand, he also saw how easily someone like Goldwater could transform into a demagogue who would be calling for journalists to be locked up and massive forces to invade a small and mostly harmless island like Cuba merely for what it represented as a symbolic threat. Caustically funny, sometimes pompous, but always interesting. Minute for minute, one of the most satisfying selections in the last year.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!