This is a strangely disappointing book. I guess I expected some clear connection with Adolf Hitler, some bit of evidence or conjecture that would make the man more of a creature like us. Instead, Mailer has seized on the old rumors about his family, his father, incest, and has drawn a picture that suggests the damage Hitler may (must) have suffered as a child. It is in short Mailer's imagination we are dealing with here, and his alone. There is nothing here for the historian, and perhaps that was my mistake. I was thinking historical fiction when I began reading it. There is virtually nothing of history present in the work. And worse, we learn nothing new about Hitler. A disappointment.