Norman Mailer
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few pages of Anna Karenina: SA, 22. NM expanded on his influences, saying that NAD “had been written out of what I could learn from reading James T. Farrell and John Dos Passos, with good doses of Thomas Wolfe and Tolstoy, plus homeopathic tinctures from Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Melville and Dostoyevsky” (SA, 74).
Jackie Robinson: NM to Joe Mac, 5-7-97.
apartment of Millie Brower: Brower e-mail to JML, 7-15-09.
He hired Millie’s husband: JML interview with Millicent Brower, 5-14-09.
seemed to me at the time: MLT, 108.
Fritz Lang’s classic films: In an unpublished short story, “The Thalian Adventure,” NM wrote about going to see these films with his parents and his Aunt Rose and Uncle Harry Paley. The older generation was unimpressed (HRC).
Blood of the Poet: BW remembers NM attending the screenings of surrealist films at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1940s.
Mailer and Harvey Anhalt: NM to Adelaide A. Scherer, 5-10-48.
“several in-camera tricks”: JML interview with Michael Chaiken, 4-19-11. In 2008, with a grant from the National Film Preservation Board, Chaiken worked with the HRC and the Harvard Film Archive to help restore the film, which has the working title “Millie’s Dream.” Millicent Brower and NCM attended a screening of the restoration at the New York Film Festival on 8-4-09.
“I think we Jews”: NM to Bruce Dexter, 5-6-97. The professor NM heard lecture is unknown, but it is possible that he was drawing on the historical ideas of both Henry Adams and/or Walter Benjamin. See F. J. Teggart, Theory of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925).
“Actually, it offers”: Lillian Ross, “Rugged Times,” New Yorker, 10-23-48; rpt., CNM, 14.
“War may be the ultimate purpose”: Kazin, Bright Book of Life, 74.
FOUR: PARIS AND HOLLYWOOD: PROMINENT AND EMPTY
In addition to the sources identified below, the following were drawn on: “Fan’s Memoir”; JML’s “Mailer Log”; Ph.D. dissertation of Raymond Karl Suess II, “Tom Sawyer, Horatio Alger and Sammy Glick: A Biography of Young Mailer” (St. Louis University, 1974), for letters from Francis I. “Fig” Gwaltney to NM; Robert W. Rosen’s interview with Jean Malaquais, and for historical context; JML’s unpublished interviews with NM and BW. NM’s letters are located at the HRC.
The Mailers shivered: NM, Robert F. Lucid, and Richard Wilbur, “Postwar Paris: Chronicles of Literary Life,” Paris Review, Spring 1999, 273.
Cours de Civilisation Française: Although it has been reported otherwise, NM completed the course. On his final examination, he scored 23 out of a possible 40 points (“assez bien”), and was awarded a Certificate de Langue Française, dated 2-28-48 (HRC).
“You get to longing”: NM to FG, 11-11-47.
critical study of Melville: Herman Melville: The Tragic Vision and the Heroic Ideal (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939).
“ennobled”: NM, Lucid, and Wilbur, “Postwar Paris,” Paris Review, 279.
“the commission of acts of force”: Truman’s Executive Order 9835 remained in force until the mid-1960s when the Supreme Court struck it down on grounds of vagueness and undue breadth.
“I’ve gone quite a bit to the Left”: NM to FG, 10-7-48.
introduced to Jean Malaquais: Suess, “Young Mailer,” 131; MBM, 95.
Malaquais’ background: James Kirkup, “Obituary: Jean Malaquais,” Independent, January 6, 1999, independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary -jean-malaquais-1045270; Nick Heath, “Malaquais, Jean, 1908–1998,” 12-18-06, libcom.org/hist_org/malaquais-jean-1908-1988; NM, preface to Jean Malaquais, The Joker (NY: Warner, 1974); rpt., in part, PAP, 97–105.
“Morally and intellectually”: Kirkup. “Obituary,” Independent.
“Malaquais loathed formula”: NM, preface, The Joker, 15.
“had more influence”: Ibid., 11.
“a boy scout”: Robert W. Rosen, interview with Jean Malaquais, 8-23-71, in Suess, “Young Mailer,” 133.
“exploit him”: Raymond M. Sokolov, “Flying High with Mailer,” Newsweek, 12-9-68, 84–88.
“disliked me”: Ibid.
“long leaky French winter”: AFM, 91.
“I have never heard”: NM to IBM, 12-6-47.
He came back with two ideas: NM’s “Journal January ’48” (HRC).
“a collective novel”: NM to IBM, 11-1-47.
“Maybe I’m not scared”: NM to IBM, 11-8-48.
“If my past”: AFM, 93–94.
E. M. Forster’s novels: NM read The Longest Journey (1907) before he completed NAD and said the unexpected death of Gerald, the rugby player, near the beginning, gave him the idea for the similarly surprising death of Hearn in NAD. He says in the Bill Broadway interview (“Norman Mailer: New Advertisements for Himself,” New Millennium Writing, Spring/Summer 1998, 13), that killing “a very interesting character” is tricky, but “one of the most powerful techniques you could ever use in a novel.”
work by Jean-Paul Sartre: NM did not read Sartre’s philosophical works until the mid-1950s. In Paris, he may have read The Age of Reason (NY: Knopf, 1947).
The Red and the Black: Stendhal’s novel was a touchstone for NM; he admired the audacity of Julien Sorel, the archetypal young man from the provinces. See his comment in Charles Monaghan, “Portrait of a Man Reading,” Washington Post Book World, 7-11-71; rpt., CNM, 189.
“That English fairy”: NM to FG, 1-?-48.
Goodbye to Berlin: Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (NY: Random House, 1939). See Marcus, CNM, 81, for NM’s comment on Sally Bowles.
“emasculation”: NM to Raney, 1-23-48, 1-24-48.
“howls and sulks”: NM to Raney, 2-7-48.
Raney’s upcoming visit: Raney arrived sometime in the latter half of April. His consultation with NM seems to have gone well. See NM, Lucid, and Wilbur, “Postwar Paris,” Paris Review, 279.
“It is a tone”: NM to Raney, 2-7-48.
a sentimental, Ernie Pyle version: Ernie Pyle (1900–45), a Pulitzer Prize–winning war correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain killed in combat near Okinawa, was much revered for his reports on individual soldiers written in homey, nonjournalistic prose.
“no bitch”: NM to Raney, 3-1-48.
“Around dusk”: NM to FM, BW, 3-17-48.
An American-owned car: Barbara Wasserman, “Spain, 1948—A Memoir,” Hudson Review, Autumn, 2000, 365.
“In a large bare room”: POP, 15.
“thrilled”: BW to Robert F. Lucid, 1-12-98. This five-page letter and BW’s memoir were invaluable in establishing the chronology, events, and atmospheric details of the spring and early summer of 1948.
“What pleased me”: Barbara Probst Solomon, “A Long Friendship,” MR (2008), 186.
mission was scary: The story of rescuing the political prisoners is also told in Barbara Probst Solomon, Arriving Where We Started (NY: Harper & Row, 1972).
work on a screen treatment: NM to Adelaide Scherer, 5-10-48.
“a courageous piece of publishing”: John Dos Passos to Stanley Rinehart, 5-6-48.
“U.S.A. meant more”: JML, “A Conversation with Norman Mailer,” New England Review, 141.
“Norman was flush”: MLT, 114.
Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams: Gore Vidal, “Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self,” Matters of Fact and of Fiction (Essays, 1973–1976) (NY: Random House, 1977), 142.
“I remember thinking meanly”: Gore Vidal, “Norman Mailer’s Self-Advertisements,” United States: Essays, 1952–1992 (NY: Random House, 1993), 31.
“All they could do was choke”: NM to FG, 5-21-48.
“I have no worries”: NM to Raney, 6-7-48.
“a tough baby”: NM to FM, IBM, 8-4-48.
“what the French would call”: Philip Schopper, interview with NM for American Masters documentary on Lillian Hellman, 8-7-98.
“truly formidable bare breast”: NM, Joan Mellon, Hellman and Hammett (NY: HarperCollins, 1996), 258.
“Wha
t is a carbine?”: Lillian Hellman file, HRC.
visit with Sinclair Lewis: Interview with Sylvia B. Richmond, Chelsea (Massachusetts) Record, 10-2-48, 50.
The Naked and the Dead reached first place: NAD remained on the list until 7-24-49, a total of sixty-two weeks. It was in the top five for forty-three weeks.
Times, Cue, the New York Star, and The New Yorker’s: These appeared in 1948 on 8-15, 8-21, 8-22, and 10-23, respectively.
“Getting your mug”: Ross, CNM, 13.
“a novelist to re-create”: “Fiction in the U.S.,” Life, 8-16-48, 24.
“insidious slime”: “From Here to Obscenity,” Life, 4-16-51, 40.
“both vulgar and innocent”: FG to Karl Suess, 3-9-73, “Young Mailer.”
“all but the tough-skinned”: Rinehart postcard, spring 1948 (HRC).
“Everyone was both startled and shocked”: MBM, 99.
The New Yorker, New York Times, Newsweek, New York Herald Tribune Book Review: The reviews appeared in 1948 on 5-15, 5-9, 5-10, and 5-9, respectively.
“more explicitly vile speech”: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,” NYT, 5-7-48, 21.
“I think I suffered”: “Norman Mailer on An American Dream,” New York Post, 3-25-65; rpt., CNM, 100-03.
made over thirty: Ross, CNM, 12.
associated with the Progressive Party’s: Cedric Belfrage and James Aronson, Something to Guard: The Stormy Life of the National Guardian, 1948–1967 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1978), 24. NM wrote “A Credo for the Living” for the paper (10-18-48), railing against “anti-Russian hysteria” and calling for Wallace’s election. He describes himself in the piece as “an ignorant Marxist” because he had yet to read the basic works of Marxist theory.
2,500-word feature article: “Do Professors Have Rights,” New York Post, 10-8-48, 5, 34.
“Everyone who was anyone”: Shelley Winters, Shelley II: The Middle of My Century (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 69.
“unintentionally eloquent”: NM, Lucid, and Wilbur, “Postwar Paris,” Paris Review, 281.
“unbeknownst to us”: Farley Granger, Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway (NY: St. Martin’s, 2007), 94–95.
two hundred other writers: AP wire story, 10-9-48.
“Ballots vs. Book Burning”: “Speech for Writers for Wallace” (HRC).
“Communists are the closest thing”: Bonnie K. Goodman, www.presidentialcampaignselectionsreference.wordpress.com/overviews/20th–century/1948–overview/.
“When I met Norman”: MBM, 98.
Report of Court Proceedings: Moscow: People’s Commission of Justice in the U.S.S.R., 1938. NM’s battered copy is still in his library.
Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism: London: Longmans, Green, 1939. It is likely that NM also read Trotsky’s three-volume History of the Russian Revolution (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1937).
Dissent: NM wrote a number of articles for the socialist journal founded by Howe, and served on its board from its founding until the mid-1980s.
War Diary: (NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1944).
“opinionated, cocksure”: MLT, 129.
World Without Visa: (NY: Doubleday, 1948).
“it was a disaster”: Philip Schopper interview.
“unrelenting”: MK, The Good, the Bad, and the Dolce Vita: The Adventures of an Actor in Hollywood, Paris, and Rome (NY: Nation Books, 2004), 70.
“a thoroughly constipated Stalinist hack”: Malaquais, Rosen interview in Suess, 165.
“child’s play”: MBM, 112.
“There were times”: PAP, 160.
“You’re 25”: Transcript of The Phil Donahue Show, 11-21-79, 8.
“Celebrity was great”: Alastair McKay, “Still Stormin’,” Scotsman, 2. See also NM’s comment on his sudden fame in his January 1968 Playboy interview with Paul Carroll: “Of course I dug it. I had to dig it. . . . It enabled me to get girls I would not otherwise have gotten” (rpt. PAP, 32–45).
“cauterizes a lot”: Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Life of Norman,” Harpers & Queen, 192.
“a lobotomy to my past”: AFM, 93.
“Once I had been”: Ibid., 92–93.
“I was a dependable pain”: SA, 116.
“a big fat one”: NM to Sinclair Lewis, 11-15-48.
“The Devil’s Advocate”: HRC.
“a damn thing about labor unions”: Marcus, CNM, 81.
“Full of second-novel panic”: Ibid.
Waldorf conference: The following were drawn on: AFM, 408–10; Neil Jumonville, Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 1–48; Dwight Macdonald, “The Waldorf Conference,” Politics, Winter 1949, 32A–32C; Freda Kirchwey, “Battle of the Waldorf,” Nation, 4-2-49, 377–78; Tom O’Connor, “News Tailored to Fit,” Nation, 4-16-49, 438–40; Joseph P. Lash, “Weekend at the Waldorf,” New Republic, 4-18-49, 10–14; Cedric Belfrage, “Guardian Reports on the Peace Conference Panels,” National Guardian, 4-4-49, 9; “The Russians Get a Big Hand from U.S. Friends,” Life, 4-4-49, 39–43; reports in the NYT, March 24–28, 1949; Diana Trilling, “An Interview with Dwight Macdonald,” Partisan Review: The Fiftieth Anniversary Edition (NY: Stein & Day, 1984), 312–32; Michael Macdonald’s unpublished interview with NM, 7-9-98 (HRC), MLT, 134–37; MBM, 112–13.
“out of the dream”: AFM, 408.
“Dupes and Fellow Travelers”: Life, 4-4-49.
Trojan horse: NM, “The Only Way for Writers,” Speaking of Peace: An Edited Report of the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, ed. Daniel S. Gillmor (NY: National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, 1949), 82–83.
“melancholy debauch”: NM to Muriel? 5-3-49.
“both Russia and America”: NM, “The Only Way for Writers,” Speaking of Peace, 83.
“must always work”: Norman Podhoretz, “Norman Mailer: The Embattled Vision,” Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After in American Writing (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964), 187.
“living more closely”: Marcus, CNM, 85.
“felt like a rodent”: AFM, 409–10.
“I was immediately able”: MBM, 114.
Macdonald came up: Michael Macdonald interview (HRC).
“stay incognito”: NM to FG, 1-1-49.
“the theoretical and empirical”: NM to Larry Weiss, 11-16-48.
“an adult fairy tale”: NM to FG, 1-1-49.
“a good flair for plots”: NM to Cy Rembar, 4-26-49.
“You’re going back”: MLT, 120.
“the ugliest city”: NM to FG, 11-16-48.
“reap the wind”: NM to JM, 7-3-49.
“incredibly foul and beastly”: (London) Sunday Times, 5-1-49, 1.
“is like a bell ringing”: Transcript of NM’s conversation with AP, 5-?-49 (HRC).
“foul, lewd and revolting”: Sir Hartley Shawcross, Evening Standard, 5-23-49.
“respectable society”: V. S. Pritchett, “Kinsey’s Army,” New Statesman and Nation, 5-14-49.
“the best war book”: George Orwell to David Astor, 1-21-50, Why Orwell Matters, ed. Christopher Hitchens (NY: Basic Books, 2002), 113.
“profoundly prophetic”: NM, “Light on Orwell,” Listener, 2-4-71, 144.
“combine the political essay”: AFM, 186.
“Lotus Land”: NM to Hellman, 8-8-49.
Lancaster was slated: MK, The Good, the Bad, and the Dolce Vita, 71.
war clouds over Korea: “There was no way then,” NM said, “of making a fairly serious movie of the book.” David Thompson, “Mailer by the Bay,” California, August 1987, 68.
Shelley Winters asked for his help: Winters gave her version in Shelley, Also Known as Shirley (NY: Morrow, 1980), 253–56. NM gave his in an interview with Andrew O’Hagan, “Norman Mailer: The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review Interviews III (NY: Picador, 2008), 407–8.
“looked like a prize fighter”: NM to FM, IBM, 9-1-49.
“running to the hospital”: NM to FG, 9-?-49, 1949.
; “high comedy”: MLT, 138.
“The day after the contract”: Ibid.
“The Character of the Victim”: Final script, George Landy Agency (HRC).
“He wanted it changed”: MBM, 119.
They refused and retained: NM to FM, IBM, 11-27-49.
“stank”: “Novels Are Easy,” Esquire, April 1953; rpt., CNM, 19.
“treated me well”: Letter to the Editor, NYTBR, 4-30-89, 24.
“I want you to give me”: IBM to NM, 11-21-49.
“If I ever had any doubt”: NM to IBM, 11-24-49.
Mailer used a similarly indignant tone: NCM, A Ticket to the Circus (NY: Random House, 2010), 315–16.
the last lodes: NM specifically mentions violence in this connection in the O’Hagan interview, 415–16, Paris Review Interviews III. His reputation as a pioneer in sexual exploration began with The Deer Park (1955), and was solidified with his 1959 short story in AFM, “The Time of Her Time.”
“a sponger”: MLT, 148.
“I even fell a little”: MBM, 118.
“was the unhappiest woman”: MLT, 148.
Christmas party description: MBM, 121; MLT, 149–50; Rosen interview, in Suess, “Young Mailer,” 187; Shelley, Also Known as Shirley, 296–99; NM to JML, 7-17-07; Darwin Porter, Brando Unzipped (NY: Blood Moon Productions, 2006), 289–94.
“Look, Mr. Chaplin”: Rosen interview, in Suess, “Young Mailer,” 187.
“Norman, what the fuck”: Shelley, Also Known as Shirley, 298.
“Norman had an enormous reputation”: MBM, 121.
landed a job at Twentieth Century-Fox: NM to FM, IBM, 11-27-49.
“the whole Hollywood venture”: NM to FM, IBM, 3-31-50.
“Hollywood stinks”: NM to FG, early spring 1950.
police lineup: NM to George Lea, 3-26-58.
“is the best novel written in America”: NM to BW, 6-18-50.
“The house Marion purchased”: AFM, 519. NM’s evocations of Provincetown are collected in Norman Mailer’s Provincetown: The Wild West of the East, ed. JML (Provincetown Arts Press, 2005).
“almost drove me nuts”: NM to Adeline Naiman, 7-28-50.
“fulfills none of the qualifications”: NM to BW, 6-18-50.
“If a writer really wants”: Breit, CNM, 16.
“To own something!”: NM to Adeline Naiman, 7-28-50.