Widely considered the greatest American novel written about World War II, and perhaps about any war, The Naked and the Dead secured Norman Mailer's position, at only twenty-five, as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Based on the author's own experience, it is a spellbinding account of a platoon of American soldiers in brutal combat to reclaim a Pacific island held by the Japanese and to face the unimaginable, within and without.