How many ex-wives does he have, and why does this one feel bad for him?
He had six wives. Of course, he only actually stabbed one of them, and she didn’t die, which means he was a failure as a violent man, even as he idealized the violent man with his pen (Gary Gilmore, for example), unlike his fellow writer Jack Abbott who was a former jailbird, Mailer was yet a successful murderer having never stabbed someone to death, like his pal Jack Abbott did to a waiter over a dispute about the bathroom. Admittedly, Abbott had stabbed a man before and failed to kill him. So perhaps if Mailer lives long enough he too could successfully stab someone to death, like his pal Jack Abbott.