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That time Norman Mailer stabbed his wife because she said he wasn't as good as Dostoevsky.

AP Images

From William Grimes’s obituary for Adele Mailer, who died on Sunday:

In her memoir, Mrs. Mailer recalled having taunted her husband, bluntly deriding his manhood, and making an ugly reference to his mistress. Some guests recalled that the point of no return came when she told her husband that he was not as good as Dostoyevsky.

Mailer stabbed her in the stomach and back with a penknife, puncturing her cardiac sac.

Adele and Norman Mailer eventually divorced. Elizabeth Mailer, their daughter, told the Times“After he died [in 2007], all she could say was, ‘He was a monster.’”