Lacking kindred feeling for these stolid, immaculately neat people, he nevertheless “felt a sad sorrowful respect.” He saw “in the heavy sturdy moves so many demonstrated of bodies in life’s harness . . . the muted tragedy of the Wasp—they were not here on earth to enjoy or even perhaps to love so very much, they were here to serve, and serve they had in public functions and public charities (while recipients of their charity might vomit in rage and laugh in scorn).”
Nixon’s landslide in the voting for the nomination is dutifully described. But except for Mailer’s miniature of Reagan, then fifty-seven years of age (“he had the presence of a man of thirty, the deferential enthusiasm, the bright but dependably unoriginal mind,” coupled with another personality, “very young, boyish, maybe thirteen or fourteen, freckles, cowlick, I tripped-on-my-sneaker-lace aw shucks variety of confusion”), the Miami narrative offers little more than high reportorial professionalism and, in his elaborations of WASPish rectitude, a shrewd application of Wilhelm Reich’s theories of psychological “body armoring.”
Upon his return, he spent ten days writing the 25,000-word Miami narrative, working rapidly so he had a few days to spend with Jan Welt and Lana Jokel as they worked on Maidstone. On August 24, he flew to Chicago. He loved the city, and his opening paean has been quoted by boosters of the Windy City for decades. “The reporter was sentimental about Chicago,” he states at the outset of part two, “The Siege of Chicago,” because Chicagoans “were like the good people of Brooklyn.”
They were simple, strong, warm-spirited, sly, rough, compassionate, jostling, tricky and extraordinarily good-natured because they had sex in their pockets, muscles on their back, hot eats around the corner, neighborhoods which dripped with the sauce of local legend, and real city architecture, brownstones with different windows on every floor, vistas for miles of red-brick and two-family wood-frame houses with balconies and porches, runty stunted trees rich as farmland in their promise of tenderness the first city evenings of spring, streets where kids played stick-ball and roller-hockey, lots of smoke and iron twilight.
The evocation becomes all the more powerful in memory as the narrative unfolds, culminating in a wrenching description of the “police riot” that besmirched the Democratic convention. Thousands of protesters and many innocent bystanders were beaten bloody by twelve thousand Chicago policemen backed up by 7,500 members of the Illinois National Guard. Some of the violence was seen on national television and helped to insure Nixon’s election. Chicago’s reputation was badly injured, and Mayor Richard Daley, whose constituency was made up of “people whose ancestors were at home with rude instruments in Polish forests, Ukrainian marshes, Irish bogs,” lost a portion of his national clout. When Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, in a speech nominating Senator George McGovern, accused Daley of “Gestapo tactics,” Mailer wrote, “Daley was on his feet, Daley was shaking his fist at the podium, Daley was mouthing words. One could not hear the words, but his lips were clear. Daley seemed to be telling Ribicoff to go have carnal relations with himself.” Mailer faithfully records all the violence on Michigan Avenue and in Lincoln Park, and all the hypocrisy inside the convention hall, including the falsely enthusiastic nomination of Humphrey.
Unlike the March on the Pentagon, Mailer was not a central figure at the convention. He knew his chief function was to record the event, yet he felt waves of shame for not being on the front line with the protesters. Instead, he drank in the Hilton and contemplated his fear. “It seemed to him that he had been afraid all his life, but in recent years, or so it seemed, he had learned how to take a step into his fear.” But now he was hesitating. He was reluctant to lose his place, even in a country that was going mad. His country “had allowed him to write—it had even not deprived him entirely of honors, certainly not of an income. He had lived well enough to have six children, a house on the water, a good apartment, good meals, good booze, he had even come to enjoy wine. A revolutionary with taste in wine has come already half the distance from Marx to [Edmund] Burke.” Mailer’s sympathies were on the side of the Hippies and Yippies and the SDS, but he hated to see the country fall into “the nihilistic maw of a national disorder.” He wanted his life to continue as it was going—making films and writing books and enjoying his growing family—but not if that meant being silent about an unjust war. After World War II, he said, he lived for a decade or more with the “potential militancy of a real revolutionary,” but “the timing in his soul was apocalyptically maladroit.” But when the time came, he did walk across Michigan Avenue to Grant Park and, after listening to Ginsberg and Burroughs he got up and gave a brief speech to the crowd about how long the struggle might continue, perhaps twenty years. He ended by explaining that he would not be with them the next day because he had a deadline and didn’t want to chance getting arrested. When he had finished, someone in the crowd yelled, “Write good, baby.”
Willie Morris planned to run Mailer’s account of the conventions in the November Harper’s, which would be on the newsstands three weeks before the election. New American Library would publish hardcover and paperback editions at the same time. The hope was that Miami and the Siege of Chicago would have the same kind of influence that “Superman Comes to the Supermarket” and “In the Red Light” had on the 1960 and 1964 elections, respectively. He went to work shortly after he returned from Chicago, writing if anything slightly faster than he had on Armies of the Night. By August 21, Morris and Robert Gutwillig at NAL had the 75,000-word manuscript in hand. He had written the fifty thousand words of part two in eighteen days. The book’s reviews were positive, but somewhat less rapturous than those received by Armies. Most reviewers agreed with Eliot Fremont-Smith, the New York Times reviewer, that it was “more conventional” than Armies. Jack Richardson, for example, in a highly complimentary essay in The New York Review of Books noted that Mailer had allowed the conventions “to unfold for the most part unchallenged by his imagination.” Miami stands in the shadow of Armies, and has suffered for it, but in the introduction to a 2008 reprint, Frank Rich said that it “holds up better than most political journalism written last week, let alone four decades ago.” Rich argues that Mailer’s genuine ambivalence about the events, coupled with his “literary energy and intellectual independence” transcends the “small-bore pack mentality” of what passes for much of today’s political journalism, in print and on line. How much Miami affected vote totals cannot be gauged. Nixon, as we know, defeated Humphrey by less than one percent of the popular vote, although the ten million votes, mainly in southern states, received by third-party candidate George C. Wallace may have cost the Democrats the election.
NINE
POLITICIAN TO PRISONER
Mailer’s campaign for mayor of New York City in 1969 was considerably different from the one he had envisioned in 1960. He made clear to his backers that he intended to run a real campaign, filing nominating papers for the Democratic primary and hiring a professional staff. Nevertheless, the campaign was the operative definition of quixotic. While the literary intelligentsia saw it as intellectually provocative and slightly heroic, the mainstream media considered it to be somewhat nutty and eminently newsworthy. Both were correct. He made his decision to run in early March at almost exactly the same time that he agreed to write a series of articles for Life magazine on the upcoming Apollo 11 mission to put a man on the moon, achieving the goal announced by President Kennedy in May 1961. A major factor in his decision was that his stature as a writer was higher than it had been in twenty years, and few intellectuals came close to him as a construer of the tumultuous events of the period, a time when, as he said, “the real had become more fantastic than the imagined.” The offer from Life and suggestions from three writer friends—Jack Newfield, Noel Parmentel, and Gloria Steinem—that he run for mayor reinforced each other, and satisfied both sides, or all sides, of his nature. He saw that he had reached a critical juncture in his life, and it seemed incumbent on him, as he put it when referring to the Mar
ch on the Pentagon, to take his recent victories and “bring them whole, intact, in sum, as they stood now, to cast—nay—shades of Henry James—to fling [them] on the gaming tables of life resumed in New York, and there amass a doubling and trebling again.” What were these victories?
His two most recent books had both been better received than any since The Naked and the Dead. Written nine months apart, both were nominated for the 1969 National Book Award. The Armies of the Night, in which he foregrounds his presence, was an arts and letters nominee; Miami and the Siege of Chicago, in which he steps back several paces from events, was nominated in the history and biography category. After watching Mailer discuss politics on the Today show shortly after Armies was published, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright William Inge wrote to him to say that he admired his work and thought he was handsome enough to run for office. Inge urged him, however, to remember that the artist’s concern should be “with the heart and human sensibilities.” In his response, Mailer admitted he wanted to do just what Inge suggested, but had concluded that “the disease of the 20th century is that politics had invaded the heart and polluted our sensibilities and there is no real way out—that one must write about politics as endemically as love.” As Emerson notes in “Fate,” “One key, one solution to the mysteries of the human condition, one solution to the old knots of fate, freedom and foreknowledge, exists: the propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or plant one foot on the back of one and the other foot on the back of the other.” Like Emerson’s equestrians, Mailer made such leaps with great skill during these years.
There were other indications of how brightly Mailer’s reputation shone at the time: in June 1968, the Kennedy family asked him to be a member of the honor guard during the memorial for the slain senator. His new British publisher, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, planned to rush Armies into print shortly after its American publication. Thomas Nagel, a Harvard alumnus, asked to nominate him for a position on the Harvard Board of Overseers. Mailer’s first impulse was to say no, but after reflecting on the “comic, philosophical, spiritual, existential” possibilities of having a voice in governing his alma mater, he gave his permission. Perhaps the most striking evidence of his standing came from Time magazine: the editor proposed him for a cover story. Henry Luce had died in the spring of 1967 and the magazine was moving closer to the political center, but it was Mailer’s achievements that forced the decision. The new managing editor, Henry Grunwald, wrote to him to say it was “an auspicious moment to achieve a truce.” They had lunch and the story was scheduled for late October, right after the publication of Miami and the Siege of Chicago. Newsweek also contacted him to propose a fall cover story.
Not all of these possibilities worked out, but his three-day trip to London to publicize Armies of the Night was a success, and he was nominated for the Harvard post. He and the other “insurgent” nominee, Herbert R. Norr, a member of the SDS, were not elected, however, and Time dropped its plans to do a cover story on him when Newsweek beat it to the punch, publishing a head shot of Mailer, looking lean and hungry, on the cover of its December 9, 1968, issue. He agreed, of course, to the Kennedy family request, and watched a huge crowd wait up to six hours to pass by the senator’s body as it lay in state in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Watching “the poorest part of the working-class of New York” file by and touch the flag-covered coffin led Mailer to recall “the awful cry of the wounded pig in his throat” the night he learned that the senator had been shot. He had for years believed that one must “balance every moment between the angel in oneself and the swine,” and the sound of his cry shocked him. He had spent the afternoon before the senator was shot in Los Angeles “enjoying a dalliance,” which led him to conclude that his infidelities had provided “one less piton of mooring for Senator Kennedy in his lonely ascent,” a conclusion that demonstrated, once again, Mailer’s belief in the concordance of human and divine endeavors and his egotism concerning the signal importance of his own actions. His urge at that moment had been to confess to Beverly, but he lacked the courage to confront “his wife’s illimitable funds of untempered redneck wrath.” So he remained silent as the marriage worsened.
At the start of 1969, he had intended to devote himself entirely to editing Maidstone, and had written a form letter of regret to be sent to the many colleges and universities that asked him to speak. (He did agree to accept an honorary degree from Rutgers University, however, an honor recommended by English professor Richard Poirier, a stalwart admirer.) In the form letter, he said he wanted time to think and edit Maidstone, adding that he was “feeling a little tired of the sound of my voice,” a remark that in retrospect seems comic considering his daily speaking chores during the mayoral campaign. During the eight-week mayoral campaign, his work on the film ceased entirely, and he wrote only speeches and campaign policy papers. Shortly after making the decision to run, he had his new secretary, Carolyn Mason, invite about twenty potential supporters to a March 31 meeting at his apartment. Campaign manager Joe Flaherty begins his hilarious campaign biography, Managing Mailer, with an account of this meeting. In addition to the three writers who had urged him to run, three close friends—Torres, Hamill, and Farbar—were there, as well as Flaherty, Jerry Rubin, and several former workers in Eugene McCarthy’s campaign. Columnist Jimmy Breslin, a tribune for working-class readers of New York tabloid newspapers, was also invited. Some of the group thought he should run on the ticket with Mailer and give the campaign some “street smarts,” as Gloria Steinem put it. With some arm-twisting, Breslin agreed to run for president of the City Council.
Mailer asked the group for their opinions of his candidacy, and the dialogue that ensued, Flaherty wrote, “could be matched only by the construction crew who worked on the Tower of Babel.” It got no better when Mailer said he intended to forge “a hip left-right coalition.” When he said he intended to run as a Democrat, Rubin said: “Electoral politics is not relevant.” Mailer replied:
“What do you believe in, Jerry—spirituality?”
“Yes. Spirituality, Norman.”
“Then what about the spirituality of the machine? To make it hum, hum, hum . . .”
Suddenly, Rubin looked like a convert as the “hums” graced the air like so many Kyrie Eleisons.
The meeting broke up soon after, and when the group got to the street, Breslin shouted, “Do you know something—that fuckin’ bum is serious!” A day later Mailer went to Provincetown for two weeks to think.
While he was away, a full-page ad appeared in The Village Voice asking “Do you want Norman Mailer for Mayor and Jimmy Breslin for President of the City Council?” The ad asked for volunteers and contributions and listed some of those who supported the ticket. Steinem agreed to raise money and to run on the ticket as comptroller. She skillfully accomplished the former but, pleading fiscal ignorance, dropped off the ticket almost immediately. Mailer had pursued her romantically, and they had a one-night stand during the campaign. Steinem’s biographer says that she went to bed with him “either because of fatigue or because of the nonfeminist kindness that gives out ‘mercy fucks.’ ” Whatever the case, she stuck with the campaign to the end. After he returned from Provincetown in mid-April, he went to a meeting at her apartment. When Flaherty arrived, a noticeably slimmer and rested Mailer snapped at him, “You’re a half hour late. Let’s make it on time in the future.” He was ready to campaign.
A staff was hired, volunteers poured in, nominating petitions were printed, and an office was rented in Midtown Manhattan, near Columbus Circle. Alice Krakauer, a former McCarthy staffer, was put in charge of scheduling. Jack Newfield and Peter Maas were appointed press co-secretaries. A young Rutgers professor, Peter Manso, and Susan Harmon, an urban affairs expert, were assigned to draft position papers. Shortly before the official announcement on May 1, Mailer adopted what would be the ca
mpaign’s most appealing if controversial plank: make New York City the fifty-first state. He got the idea from either Clay Felker, then editor of New York magazine, or Hamill, then a New York Post columnist, although the idea may go all the way back to William Randolph Hearst. As late as 1995, New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani was quoted as saying that if the city was the fifty-first state, it would not have a budget deficit. It was one of several ideas from the campaign that are still discussed.
It took Mailer time to learn how to speak to political audiences. Early on, he met with the memberships of several so-called reform clubs whose members opposed the Democratic machine. At the Lexington Democratic Club on East 86th Street, he was challenged on the idea of the fifty-first state. Why would the legislature in the state capital, Albany, give the city its freedom, especially if it would result in the loss of city tax dollars—Mailer had pointed out that the city residents paid out much more than they received back from the state government. He replied that if he won, a constitutional convention would be called, followed by approval by the state assembly, and then by the U.S. Congress. The club’s members were unconvinced. At this point Mailer shifted gears and took on what he thought were the folksy tones of an Albany farmer. “Well,” he said, “those farmers up there might want to get rid of all us evil Jews and niggers.” His impersonation brought groans from the crowd. As the campaign unfolded, he improved.
At the Union Theological Seminary in upper Manhattan, he and Breslin presented another key position of the campaign: neighborhood power. Every part of the city would be allowed, within yet undefined limits, to live in its own way. If Harlem wanted a statue of Martin Luther King, fine; if Staten Island wanted one of John Birch, that was okay too. Breslin spoke first, and said how impressed he was to appear before such an educated group. As for his own education, he went to John Adams High School in Queens—“for five years.” Adams High was located near Aqueduct Racetrack, he continued and “The first English sentence I ever learned was ‘It is now post time.’ ” Peals of laughter followed; Breslin knew how to warm up a crowd.
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