A few weeks later he felt strong enough to give a reading from his work at the Mailer Society conference, along with Norris, Stephen, and John. He was pleased that Judith McNally attended, her first visit to Provincetown. And on November 11, he and Norris celebrated twenty-five years of marriage with a dinner with John Buffalo at Front Street, one of their favorite Provincetown restaurants. His breathing had improved somewhat, and he began talking about getting back to work. On November 16, he went to New York to receive the National Book Award medal from Toni Morrison and give a short speech on the decline of interest in serious novels. “Rarely are good novels good page-turners,” he said.
Jason Epstein had retired, and his new editor, David Ebershoff, came to Provincetown to discuss The Castle in the Forest. Ebershoff recalled that Mailer wanted to see the book published, but showed “a little bit of uneasiness about whether he could finish. He didn’t say that, but I sensed it.” Random House wanted him to extend it at least to 1903, bringing Hitler up to his late teens. Mailer had long planned to do this, but he said to Ebershoff with false indignation, “You realize what you’ve just told me is going to give me nine to twelve more months of work?” Ebershoff laughed and said, “Yeah, I do.” A more delicate issue was the Russian section.
Ebershoff and others who had read the manuscript found the long description of the courtship of Nicholas and Alexandra, and other events leading up to Nicholas’s coronation, to be problematic. The narrator, a fallen angel named Dieter, or D.T., leaves young Hitler and spends a hundred book pages fomenting confusion in the imperial Russian court. Norris, Lucid, and others compared the Russian excursion to the bloated Uruguayan episode in Harlot’s Ghost. Mailer seemed to be repeating his mistake. Ebershoff found it to be “incredibly digressive.” In early 2006 in New York, Gina Centrello, the president and publisher of Random House, agreed on the need to cut back the Russian section. At one meeting with Mailer, she and Ebershoff listed all the qualities of the novel that they admired. Then they told him that there was a section that needed “a little work,” which she explained was “a publisher’s euphemism for, ‘This section needs to be cut.’ ”
I barely got the sentence out before Norman jumped in, “You don’t like the Nicholas II section, do you? I know the critics will hate it,” he said.
I nodded sheepishly.
“If I delete it, the book will be more of a page-turner,” said Norman.
Feeling encouraged, I responded, “That’s right, Norman, it would be much more of a page-turner.”
Then, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, he announced, “Gina, I hate page-turners.”
Mailer did trim the section, including many of the love notes exchanged between Nicholas and Alexandra during their courtship. But when he turned in the final manuscript in the spring of 2006, the bulk of the Russian material was still there. He thought it was critical to show how Dieter, a leading minion of the Evil One, created the disaster after the coronation at Khodynskoye Pole, a meadow where celebrating peasants were gathered to receive gifts from the Czar. Over 1,300 people were trampled to death, which destroyed the festivities. Ebershoff recalled that Centrello still felt strongly that the Russian material had to go. She joined him for a final editorial meeting with Mailer. “We went to see him in Brooklyn Heights, for lunch,” Ebershoff recalled,
and we were talking about the book’s publication, but also the Russian section in particular. He said that he had been hearing this, obviously, from me and Norris, and it’s been going on for a while, and he knew what we were saying had some merit. And right at the table he said, “I know what I’m going to do. I’ll dare the reader to skip over it. I’ll just tell them just turn to page X,” and he said, “Make sure the copy editor figures out what the page numbers will be, and Adolf Hitler’s story will pick up again right there.” It was brilliant. I saw that he immediately understood what he was doing, not only in terms of the narrative, but the way people might talk about it, and that it could be controversial, and some people would love it because it’s kind of a wink. Other people would be infuriated. I thought it was so clever.
He also extended the novel to 1905, two years after the death of Adolf’s father, Alois, making it a 477-page book, a relatively modest length for him. Publication was set for January 31, 2007, his eighty-fourth birthday. He dedicated it to his grandchildren, his grandniece, and his godchildren.
THE BIG EMPTY was published on January 24, and while not reviewed widely, it received generally warm notices with a few complaints about some of the conversations being recycled. It also got kudos for the range of topics covered and the easy back-and-forth between father and son. One of the themes undergirding their conversations is the comparisons, elicited by John, between the post–World War II Zeitgeist and that of the period after 9/11. Mailer contrasts the altruism of the earlier generation who created the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe with the greed of global capitalists who are blind to “the real spirit of Jesus.” John rarely disagrees with his father, except about the effects of marijuana, but nudges him deftly to expatiate on various matters, including the merits of civil protest.
Another theme woven through the dialogues is a contrast he made in his 2004 Nieman Fellows lecture at Harvard, titled “Myth Versus Hypothesis.” The lecture is a careful demolition of the premises for the Iraq War, and the myths that sustained it. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney enunciated the myths: “We must war against the invisible kingdom of Satan,” now manifested in Islamic monsters opposed to all that America, God’s favored nation, holds sacred. Therefore, “Good will overcome a dark enemy.” Opposed to the simplisms of American exceptionalism is the art of hypothesis employed by novelists: “A good novel,” Mailer says, is “an attack on the nature of reality,” a reality that is always changing: “The honor, the value, of a serious novel rests on the assumption that the explanations our culture has given us on profound questions are not profound. Working on a novel, one feels oneself getting closer to new questions, better ones, questions that are harder to answer.” There is no assertion that novelists capture reality completely—“unless you are Charles Dickens and are writing A Christmas Carol.” Novelists approach reality; certainties are few and surmises abound. He placed the lecture near the beginning of The Big Empty, and the dialectic it endorses sets the tone for the conversations.
In an interview after publication, Mailer spoke of his relationship with John: “As a father of nine, I’ve tried not to have a favorite, but John endangers that position. I’m close to all of my children, but the two of us are extra-close.” Because of his age—more than six years younger than Matthew—John had “the insularity of the single child,” but also had the advantages of a big family. John made the same point in 2012, but went further.
Since the folks have passed, it has become clearer to me that being both an only child, and being the youngest of nine have each played an equal role in my understanding of what the word ‘family’ means. In my estimate, I easily got the best of my dad because he had mellowed some by the time I came around. He was more interested than ever in dedicating time to being a parent. Not that I think he wasn’t a great parent to all nine of us, although some of my siblings may disagree with me. It’s undeniable that he had something different with my mother than he had with his previous wives, and I think it boils down to stability.
ON MAY 4, shortly after the final manuscript of Castle in the Forest was in the hands of Mailer’s editor, Judith McNally died. A heavy smoker who resisted all entreaties to quit, she had not felt well for a few months. An extraordinarily intelligent person, she nevertheless persisted in the belief that smoke killed germs and was good for her plants. When her friend took her cat from her apartment after her death, it went into withdrawal and the vet had to put on a nicotine patch. Mailer wrote to his Providence friend, Ed McAlice, whose manuscripts Judith had read and critiqued for years, about her passing. McAlice himself was ill with emphysema, and becoming depressed. Mailer commiserated.
&n
bsp; Growing old without cracking may be the subtlest of the art forms. Incidentally, while we’re on these sad and sour subjects, let me tell you that Judith McNally died over a month ago. We never knew quite of what, she hid her illnesses, but I believe she had cancer of the lungs and cancer of the liver. As you can imagine she left quite a gap behind her. Indeed we had a memorial service for her at my apartment in Brooklyn. I still find it hard to believe. . . . She, like me, despite her intense and often harsh criticisms of your work, had a very high opinion of your talent and thought the real stuff was there. So do I.
Norris was in and out of the hospital during this period. Mailer wrote to a cousin about her, and said, “She has lost so much weight she looks again as she did many years ago when she was a model and is, if a touch weak, strikingly elegant and fun to look at.” Sometimes she and Mailer would drive to Boston together for their medical problems. Stephen also became ill and had surgery for a bleeding colon just before the Mailers went to New York for Judith’s memorial. He came through all right, but his father and Norris were worried. The night before the surgery, Mailer called Stephen in the hospital. He was in too much pain to talk much, so Mailer just said, “I love you.” When he got off, he told Norris that Stephen had said the same thing to him. Their relationship was strained at times but the love was always there.
The Castle in the Forest was Mailer’s first family novel, and he planned to make this point in prepublication interviews. The interstices of family life, the grudges and anxieties and hidden agendas, all that nitty-gritty, are carefully delineated in the novel. The death—euthanasia, really—of the household dog, Luther, brings out the cross-currents in the family, and Adolf’s mother, Klara’s mistaken belief that Alois is part Jewish is even richer in its presentation and implications. All this gave Mailer hope of good reviews. But every Mailer book is tested against his announced aspirations and accomplishments over a half century, and some reviewers want notches on their guns. He was also concerned about how the novel would be received in Germany. Would it be read “for exculpation” or would it be regarded as one more finger pointing at the German psyche. He didn’t like any of the initial dust jacket designs and sketched out a new one that became the basis for the final jacket. For the German edition, and those in other European countries, the swastika over the entrance of a castle was removed, as it violated the EU law.
With the novel put to bed, Mailer immersed himself in poker. There was a game three or four nights a week, and during the day he read the pile of poker books he had collected. He believed that Texas hold ’em was so popular because it enabled players to exercise buried paranoiac and anti-paranoiac tendencies. When a player surmises that another is bluffing, the former trait is put into play; the latter is a counterforce, akin to cold sober reasoning. He saw the game as a way of toning underused psychic muscles. Asked if Alpha and Omega were also a factor, he said it was too complicated to contemplate because A and O could have both paranoiac and counter-paranoiac tendencies.
When she wasn’t too tired, Norris liked to sit in, as did his sister and the Lennons. Neighbors Astrid Berg, Chris Busa and Marty Michaelson also played, as did a local journalist, Anne Wood, and a retired telephone operator, Pat Doyle, whose wry wit Mailer enjoyed. Most of his children played when they were visiting, and some of their spouses. All guests were encouraged to play. It was an open game with a $20 buy-in so it was rare when someone lost or won $100. When Mailer’s nephew Peter, who played professionally and wrote a book about participating in the World Series of Poker, Take Me to the River, showed up for a game, some players groaned. A superb player, he usually walked out as a winner.
In July, a magazine editor heard about Mailer’s interest in poker and contacted him about doing a piece on the World Series of Poker depicting tournament highlights and characters, and presenting his ideas about the lure of the game. “I feel that there is a big poker novel to be written,” he said. If he had been younger and healthier, there is little doubt that he would have taken the assignment. When someone said that it would be a shame if he dropped the Hitler series, he nodded his head in agreement. “I’ve been abandoning novels like wives for many years, and I’d like to continue this one.”
MAILER HAD GOTTEN heavier in the early 2000s. Now not much more than five foot five, he weighed about 220 before the surgery. But afterwards he began to shed pounds as his appetite waned. Walking had become increasingly difficult, and traversing the quarter of a mile to Michael Shay’s, his favorite restaurant, was hard going. He loved the oysters they served, and ate there several nights a week, especially when Norris was back in New York. Her two sons and most of her stepchildren were there and she wanted to move her mother there. It was a touchy subject. Michael had gotten married in 2004, and Matthew and nephew Peter the following year. The number of grandchildren continued to grow. Only John Buffalo and Maggie hadn’t yet married. Norris loved spending time with the Mailer clan and her many New York friends, and took special delight in Mattie James, the daughter of Matthew and Salina Sais, but felt guilty about being away from her husband, who much preferred Provincetown. She drove back and forth, six hours each way.
The loss of one’s upper teeth, Mailer said, was a blow to manhood. He made many trips to the dentist for complicated implant procedures, and for treatment of an infection. He received a huge bill from a New York periodontist but had to put off payment until he cashed the first check from the University of Texas. He rarely spoke of his health problems in any detail, but couldn’t resist occasionally dramatizing his situation, as in this letter to Jim Blake, an architect with whom he had struck up a long-distance friendship.
The feet can go, the knees, the hips—not that they’re all gone yet, but they’re going—the eyesight, the hearing, the sense of taste, the screwing. I take pleasure in announcing to friends that once I could boast of a seven and a half inch column of silver dollars, but now I’m down to half a roll of dimes. This, believe it or not, inspires my pleasure. It’s a wan expression of audacity but it’s still my own. Anyway, I tell you this not to feel sorry for me—I’ve had a reasonably interesting life—but to present this as preface to the one solid benefit of old age, which is you come to know at last who the hell you are. And so you are at peace with what you did and what you failed to do. And even the envy and competitiveness that kept one driving and working is moderated to the point where your heart does not turn black if a fellow novelist of high proportions has written a good book.
One of the things that cheered him up was a box of business-size cards that a friend of John’s had printed up. Each card carried a color photograph of a sailboat going before the wind beneath a bright sun, a greeting card scene. Three large letters were printed across the scene: G F Y. Mailer gave them out to everyone for months. He would pull one out of his shirt pocket, and hand it mysteriously to arriving guests. Then he would slap the table (as Barney used to), and laugh. At one point he got the idea of copyrighting the card and making money on it, enough to buy a large ranch out west where all the Mailers would have their own houses and follow their separate pursuits of writing, painting, and so forth. He eventually saw the folly of the notion, but as Norris wrote, “he got a million dollars’ worth of fun” from the cards.
Old friends were another pleasure. Hans Janitschek, loud, funny and irrepressible, always buoyed him up. In early October, Mailer went to lunch with him and the Lennons at a seafood restaurant in nearby Wellfleet, as recorded in the “Mailer Log”:
We got a table and ordered a drink as the rain came down on the saltwater lagoon outside. NM wanted oysters, the famous Wellfleet oysters; so did Hans. We got a table right in the middle of the room, which held about 25 other diners, mainly older Wellfleeters. While we waited for our meals, NM told a story about a dinner meeting with the British publisher, George Weidenfeld, in the late 1960s. Joining them was K, a beautiful blonde heiress who was attracted to him, he said, and who he lusted after. But after three hours together, she said, “Goodnight Norman,” and w
ent off with the publisher. Hans said that Weidenfeld was famously endowed; his member had a valuable twist. NM: “An S-shape?” Hans: “No, sort of a half moon.” Hans went on in his blustery voice to explain—with most of the restaurant listening—that Americans mispronounce “penis.” “They call it pee-NUS,” he said loudly, and then repeated the mispronunciation three times for emphasis. NM laughed at this and his teeth loosened. He took them out, wiped them with his napkin, and then pulled out a tube of glue or paste and applied it. He said he usually does this in the restroom, but “what the hell.” The Wellfleet locals, all of whom recognized NM, enjoyed the show.
Whenever Mailer had oysters, which was often, he examined the shell, and half the time found a face there, in relief. The waitress at Michael Shay’s with whom he flirted asked him at the end of every meal which pile he was bringing home and boxed them up. He cleaned them and then put them out on his deck to bleach. On each shell he saw the suggestion of one, a Greek warrior, or a long-dead beauty. He had Norris touch up the features with paint and photograph them. He thought they might make an interesting book.
ADVANCE REVIEW COPIES of The Castle in the Forest were in the hands of reviewers by late October 2006, and Mailer was scheduled for a round of interviews in New York the following month. He glanced through the Kakutani file, and read again her review of Oswald’s Tale, which she had called “ultimately superfluous.” In an upcoming Esquire interview he thought he might say something about her, and perhaps at a large meeting of book reviewers at a Manhattan restaurant. “I want the maximum of focus on her,” he said, “so that when she picks up my book her hand is shaking with hate.” He was also considering sending a copy of his analysis to the top editors at The New York Times, but did not. When anyone brought up the wisdom of his questioning Kakutani’s motives, he bristled.
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