Mailer's Self-referential 3rd Person

I found it interesting that Mailer chose to describe himself in the third person in The Armies of the Night. It’s a stylistic choice that creates a distance between himself as a writer and as a person, kind of allowing him to step outside of himself. Mailer transforms himself into more of a character than a real person, which perhaps gave him as well as his readers some insight into self-perception. Considering that, is The Armies of the Night meant more as a memoir or as an exercise in New Journalism?