Norman Mailer is sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, sneakers on his feet. He’s a horrid little man, pugnacious and with small eyes that are sharp and mistrustful.

He has written mountainous quantities of goat food – but his greatness is upheld by the Naked and the Dead, which he published when he was 26, Armies of the Night, the Executioner’s Song and parts of Harlot’s Ghost. The latter, his latest book, is about the CIA and took him seven years to write; at 1,122 pages of anorexic type, it would take as long to digest slowly – which is what he expects.

He won fame as a boozer, brawler, foulmouth and wife thief, galvanised on drugs; is a serial spouse, married six times, nine children; stabbed his second wife, near fatally, at a party in 1960 and was briefly sent to an asylum; and was a New York mayoral candidate, beginning his address to the electorate with: ‘Fuck you!’

He has also directed and acted in films; secured the release of jailed murderer Jack Henry Abbott on literary grounds, though Abbott then murdered again; and, in this month’s Vanity Fair, he encourages Warren Beatty to run for presidency. ‘I’m serious about that,’ says Mailer.

Interviewers have found Mailer, now 68, genial. Jean Campbell, one of his former wives and Lord Beaverbrook’s granddaughter, interviewed her former husband in 1970. Waiting for the genius, she said, was like waiting to get into a helicopter on a stormy night.

How does he feel about stabbing his wife? ‘Er, regretful. My children have had to pay for it much more than I have. But far more than that, I regret it because it gets asked of me in every goddammed interview. Repetition kills the soul.’

Reports at the time said he was undergoing an ‘acute paranoid breakdown’. ‘I wasn’t (angrily). I was feeling pretty unhappy, you might say, and things were rather grim.’ What was it that motivated him? ‘Oh you’ve gotta great chance of getting that question answered. If I were to write a novel, I might be able to write a suggestion of an answer.’

As long as you use a knife/There’s some love left, he wrote in a poem. He sighs. ‘I don’t just write in my own voice. To say that that’s Mailer’s Philosophy is an example of particularly sloppy thinking.’

He has been with his wife Norris for 16 years. One wonders why he felt the need to marry so many of his women. ‘Oh, sloppiness, I guess.’ And the real answer? ‘I like marriage, obviously, or I wouldn’t be getting married.’ Has he ever tried being alone? ‘Mmm, now and again’ (pensive). And what’s that like? ‘Well, I guess that the answer is that sooner or later I get married, don’t I?’

Mailer to Warren Beatty in Vanity Fair: ‘There was a period in my life when I literally couldn’t be faithful. I mean, even if I was in love I couldn’t be faithful.’ And he once wrote, in ever-deepening debt, that ‘alimony is the curse of the writing classes’. He says now: ‘I do believe in the possibility of fidelity.’

And has he had any homosexual experience? ‘No.’ There was no point in asking. But amid the rampant heterosexuality of Harlot’s Ghost, there is a revulsion and fascination with homosexuality.

Mailer rarely discloses anything about his childhood. It is known that Mailer’s father was a gambler, a deeply unpredictable and private man of whom he was afraid. His mother was the dominating presence, strongly opinionated and easily hurt. She came close to leaving the marriage a few times. Mailer has inherited more than a few of their characteristics, though instead of gambling he took up drink and drugs.

He’s eloquent, fast, massively clever, sometimes dead funny and one can imagine him to be sensitive beneath the horny crust, perhaps easily offended even. But he comes over like a dry drunk, a man full of rage and fear who is white-knuckling his alcohol habit, trying not to need it, yearning to change his mood. And with a cruel streak – fighting, confrontational, combative – a boxer in spirit if no longer in deed. Being with him is like getting caught in the crossfire from a machine gun.

He has a big ego, but one senses an inner inferiority, that he may suffer the fear, amid all the media attention, that he’s actually second-rate. Certainly he doesn’t like criticism. One recalls New York reviewer John Simon’s words: ‘Norman Mailer dislikes me intensely and he feels that way about 98 per cent of the population.’

Is he this pugilistic in all his relationships? ‘No, but I enjoy it as you do. We’re made for each other, kid. Tell me your name again.’ Is the best form of defence attack? ‘You have to choose your strokes and select your blows. There’s no such thing as the best form of defence. Even in violence one must be flexible.’ He likes the last sentiment and can see it going down as one of the legendary sayings of the great man. He appears ill at ease with himself; his is a combativeness, spiky and defensive, that is born of fear. ‘Aren’t we finished?’ No. Is that the way he feels about himself? ‘No, I think I feel relatively comfortable with myself.’

He considers there to be 40 writers in the world who reckon themselves literary giants. ‘Possibly only three of us (he laughs) who will be thought of in that way in years to come.’ He won’t be drawn on the other names. ‘I don’t identify with anyone. Why should I?’ (aggressive, rude tone). ‘Sure I admire hordes of people, starting with Napoleon. At one time I used to identify both with Fidel Castro and General de Gaulle. I thought they were the two most exciting world leaders alive at the time.’ He expects the interviewer to be outrageously discomfited.

Does he enjoy being a great patriarchal figure? ‘Listen! Your notion of me is so loaded with cliches. Do you think I really walk around all day thinking I’m this great patriarchal figure?’ No, but he is seen in such a way. ‘People in the western world don’t know what’s going on anywhere. They believe what they read in newspapers, they perceive the world as bearing some resemblance to what they watch on television.’

Gore Vidal said Mailer’s views on women ‘are about as enlightened as a Saturday night discussion in the smoking room of a corporals’ mess at an RAF station somewhere on the wrong side of Croydon’. Women may be the nobler half of creation, says Mailer, but the evidence of their inner temperament that has been presented by Women’s Lib over the past 20 years leads him to conclude that they are the equals of men but no longer their superiors. ‘I used to think that women were nicer than men, now I think they are about the same. What leaves you discontented with most men is that they can’t think . . . now women are showing that they have the same mental attitude as men.’ It has been said that all American men hate women deeply, and take it out on them in different ways. ‘Absolute nonsense! I think American men are becoming dismayed because they are beginning to recognise how much anger women are carrying towards them.’

He sees a difference between English and American women. ‘Taking it at its simplest, English women come out of a much deeper cultural tradition. So their graces are much subtler . . . and they’re more skilled in the war between men and women. Everything is very positive in America, people make a living out of being positive, so you can read hundreds of articles any week on how to get on with your husband or wife – whereas in Europe there is a centuries-old tradition of how women can manipulate men.’

Ask him about his ambition, and he gives the same answer as Fidel Castro. ‘He said he’d just like to hang out with the boys on the block. I would like to find a way I could vegetate legitimately and honourably for a few months.