Norman Mailer
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“existential similarities”: Stefan Kanfer, “Two Myths Converge,” Time, 60.
“She’d finally laid down”: Bragg, CNM, 202.
“ego-gobblings”: AFM, 93.
due on March 1: “The Monroe Doctrine,” New York, 2-26-73, 59.
“indelible”: Walter Robinson, “Mailer on Mailer on Monroe,” Sunday Times Magazine (London), 9-9-73, 22.
“There was a monumental”: MBM, 398.
Life cover story: “For Marilyn, a Look Back in Adoration,” Life, 8-19-72; 71–74.
accused Mailer of plagiarism: “Publisher Stays New Mailer Book,” NYT, 6-22-73, 21.
“No one is going”: Eric Pace, “Mailer Denies He Plagiarized,” NYT, 6-27-73, 68.
exceeded the limits: “War of Marilyn Bios Erupts Again: Zolotow Suing Mailer,” Hollywood Reporter, 7-3-73, 1, 9.
$6 million: “Zolotow Files $6-Million Suit Over Mailer’s Book ‘Marilyn,’ ” NYT, 8-4-73.
“the literary heist of the century”: Zolotow letter of apology, NYTBR, 12-8-73, 15.
paid to Zolotow and Guiles: Maurice Duke, “Too Many Facts Are Missing in Norman Mailer’s ‘Marilyn,’ ” Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7-29-73; NM, “Mailer’s Side,” Arkansas Times, 7-7-94, 6.
60 Minutes: NM interview, aired 7-13-73; all quotes from program taken from CBS-TV transcript.
Murray later recanted: Eunice Murray Wikipedia entry.
biography was a cover story: Atlantic, August 1973, contained an excerpt, as did NYRB, 8-9-73, and two in Ladies’ Home Journal, July and August 1973; four weekly excerpts from the biography ran in the Sunday Times Magazine (London) beginning 9-16-73.
400,000 copies: “Marilyn by Norman Mailer,” Grosset & Dunlap summary, August 1973 (HRC).
600,000 copies: Advertisement in Publishers Weekly, 5-13-75.
“a new genre called”: John Simon, “Mailer’s Mystic Marriage,” New Leader, 9-17-73, 21–23.
“is great as only a great”: Pauline Kael, “A Rip-off with Genius,” NYTBR, 7-22-73, 1–3.
“creating too wan”: MAR, 37.
“Napoleonic”: Ibid., 23.
“She is her career”: Ibid., 102.
“No one can be certain”: Ibid., 18.
“It is no ordinary”: Ibid., 22.
“a species of novel”: Ibid., 20. I am indebted to Carl Rollyson for enriching my discussion of MAR. See LNM, 251–61. See also Rollyson’s discussion of MAR in Female Icons: Marilyn Monroe to Susan Sontag (iUniverse, 2005).
two books that he “produced”: Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce! (NY: Random House, 1974); Muhammad Ali: A Portrait in Words and Photographs (NY: Alskog/Crowell, 1974).
“All through the 1970s”: William McDonald, “An Evening with Norman Mailer,” Lone Star Review, 3.
Sorrento, Maine: NM to Mary Bancroft, 9-21-73.
“We’d be in our bunks”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 8-20-08.
“to do things”: JML interview with Betsy Mailer, 11-29-11.
“We were away”: JML interview with Michael Mailer, 8-21-08.
One summer he gave us: Kate Mailer, “The Knife’s Edge,” MR (2008), 35.
Tiffany wide gold band: JML interview with Carol Stevens, 5-15-11.
“To work on a novel”: Deirdre Carmody, “The Rich, Famous, Talented and Powerful Resolve,” NYT, 1-1-74, C1.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Originally published by the British Museum in two volumes, 1894–95, it was reissued as a Dover Press paperback in 1967, which NM used.
“novel writing is hard”: NM to Poirier, 3-6-74.
doing push-ups: NM to Neil Abercrombie, 3-25-74.
down to 165: NM to Cus D’Amato, 6-15-73.
“These days I pant”: NM to Rust Hills, 11-19-73.
“Now everybody thinks”: NM to MK, 3-25-73.
“a lot of personal stuff”: JML interview with Mary Oliver, 9-1-11.
The book would be published: Watching My Name Go By. Documented by Mervyn Kurlansky and Jon Naar, Prepared by Lawrence Schiller (London: Mathews, Miller, Dunbar, 1974); The Faith of Graffiti (NY: Praeger, 1974); rpt., PAP, 134–58.
simultaneously in Esquire: May 1974.
Hayes had left: NM to Ed Meadows, 5-12-74.
The ice had been broken: MLT, 559.
“masterpieces in letters”: PAP, 140.
“might have been transformed”: Ibid., 142.
“the implacable enemy”: Ibid., 149–50.
“enormous black eyes”: Anne Edwards and Stephen Citron, The Inn and Us (NY: Random House, 1976), 76.
“Halfway through”: Ibid., 77–78.
“Standing in the center”: Ibid., 79.
“the only big one”: JML interview with Carol Stevens, 5-15-11.
consecutive issues of Rolling Stone: “Aquarius Hustling,” 1-2-75, 41–47, 71; “Sympathy for the Devil,” 1-16-75, 42–47, 56–57.
“changed my life”: Richard Stratton, “Meeting Mailer,” MR (2008), 314.
“elegiac tone”: “Aquarius Hustling,” 46.
“If Manson had become”: Ibid., 45.
“Dostoyevskian”: Ibid., 46.
“Napoleonic”: Ibid., 71.
“Some early scenes”: “Sympathy for the Devil,” 45.
“apathetic hippie beatdom”: “Aquarius Hustling,” 42.
most famous man: Terrence Doody, “Two Heroes: Mailer and Ali,” Houston Chronicle, 7-27-75.
“to think over”: FIG, 161.
“the transformations”: NM to Crowther, 7-11-74.
Only the Irish: NM to Kate Millett, 7-16-74. Denise Pappas referred me to an interview in which Millett recalled having a drink with NM in Provincetown, and he was “friendly but condescending.” www.eastvillage.Thelocal.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/35371.
“was hardly a Zionist”: FIG, 161.
“I always thought”: Marie Brenner, “Mailer Goes Egyptian,” New York, 3-28-83, 38.
“I could do my book”: George Plimpton, “Unbloodied by the Critical Pounding, Norman Mailer Defends the Egyptian Novel,” People, 5-30-83; rpt., CNM, 305.
“three miserable days”: FIG, 20.
undulant fever: NM to MK, 10-9-74.
“I’m beginning to think”: NM to FG, 10-9-74.
“the black crowds”: FIG, 36.
Bantu Philosophy: (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1959).
“a human with his own psyche”: FIG, 38–39.
“Excuse me for not shaking”: Ibid., 45–46.
“concentration would become”: Ibid., 48.
“were probably the heaviest”: Ibid., 61.
“no small sound”: Ibid., 91–92.
“good and drunk”: Ibid., 124.
“a triumph for everything”: Ibid., 162.
“For as long as Foreman”: Ibid., 185.
“Blows seem to pass”: Ibid., 186.
“like a drunk”: Ibid., 201.
“Foreman was becoming”: Ibid., 204.
“slow as a man”: Ibid., 204–5.
“give a prod”: Ibid., 197.
“went over like”: Ibid., 208.
He began work: NM to MK, 2-18-75.
appeared in book form: The Fight was published by Little, Brown on 7-21-75.
“a book about a genius”: Stan Isaacs, “Norman Mailer: ‘I’m Like a Minor Champ,’ ” LI: Newsday Magazine, 9-21-75, 22.
“He was no longer”: FIG, 31.
“had been burning”: Ibid., 34.
“These reportorial books”: Seymour Krim, review of FIG, Newsday, 7-28-75.
“I think it’s legitimate”: Stan Isaacs, “Norman Mailer,” LI: Newsday Magazine, 22.
“Nijinsky of ambivalence”: OFM, 472.
“He had tears”: JML interview with Carol Stevens, 6-18-11.
“How are you, Mr. Mailer”: Judy Klemesrud, “Life with Mailer: After Four Years, So Far, So Good,” NYT, 4-16-79, B13.
“The last thing”: TC, 83.
“the intensity of his blue”: Ibid., 85.
“It was all rather overw
helming”: Ibid., 88.
“Through the years”: Ibid., 98–99.
“an interloper”: Ibid., 105.
“I instinctively knew”: Ibid.
a first-rate intelligence: The Crack-Up, 69.
“has erupted”: NM to Susan Mailer, 10-22-75.
“harrowing”: NM to MK, 7-7-75.
anthology of Henry Miller’s work: MBM, 417–18.
Some Honorable Men: The collection contains excerpts from PP, CAC, MSC, and SGG; it was published by Little, Brown in October 1976.
“before its spirit”: NM to Peter Bogdanovich, 8-8-75.
IRS began putting levies: NM to MK, 5-9-75.
When the paper was sold: Felker and his partners took over VV in June 1974, but NM did not receive any money until the following spring.
“So I’m half breathing”: NM to Larry L. King, 7-7-75.
“I’m really going”: NM to MK, 8-28-75.
“For the first time”: NM to NCM, 7-30-75.
“I at last have found”: NCM to NM, 7-?-75.
read D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow: NM to NCM, 9-12-75.
The Rainbow: (London: Methuen, 1915).
“So often one finds”: NM to NCM, 6-5-75.
Cinnamon Brown: NM to NCM, 7-3-75.
“try it for a while”: TC, 120.
“to turn from all”: NCM to NM, 8-?-75.
“which would give Mother”: TC, 123.
“I’m sure they had”: Ibid., 120.
“There are no easy fights”: NM to NCM, 8-?-75; 5.
call to Suzanne Nye: JML interview with Mary Oliver, 9-1-11.
she never stopped loving Mailer: JML interview with Carol Stevens, 5-15-11.
“We were at Ciro’s”: JML interview with Stephen Mailer, 10-24-09.
“were very jagged”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 8-20-08.
“She was so young”: JML interview with Susan Mailer, 9-5-07.
her clothes were rumpled: TC, 159.
“would figure”: Ibid.
“There was like a little pig”: JML interview with NCM, 1-30-09.
“in the spirit”: TC, 162.
Sergio Leone: Best remembered for his western trilogy from the mid-1960s starring Clint Eastwood, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone (1929–89) hired MK to help dub the last of these films into English.
The Hoods: (NY: Crown, 1952).
“some of my best dialogue”: NM to Moos, 12-5-75.
“Mailer’s screenplay gave Leone”: MK, The Good, the Bad, and the Dolce Vita, 301–2.
Bogdanovich and another: TC, 181.
introduce her to Wilhelmina Cooper: Ibid., 183–85.
“Trying not to look”: Norris Church, “Getting My Book Together,” Cosmopolitan, August 1977, 130–38.
letter to him: NCM to NM, 8-?-75.
“thrilled”: TC, 185.
“In the beginning”: Ibid., 193.
“a tall lovely red-haired”: NM to Moos, 12-5-75.
“Let me have my starlet”: JML interview with Carol Stevens, 6-18-11.
“is like a good wife”: NM to Moos, 12-5-75.
“the possibility of committing”: NM to Luke Breit, 12-5-75.
“The nature of existence”: “Book Ends,” NYTBR, 3-14-76, 37.
JR: (NY: Knopf, 1975).
“waste, flux and chaos”: Susan Strehle, Fiction in a Quantum Universe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 97.
Gravity’s Rainbow: (NY: Viking, 1973).
“either a genius”: JML, “An Author’s Identity,” PAP, 157.
“psychological demeanment”: Eliot Fremont-Smith, “Do Writers Ride in Cadillacs?,” VV, 5-3-76.
published in the Los Angeles Times: “Henry Miller: Celebrating a Cause Celebre,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, 3-28-76, 1, 3.
“but believe me”: Henry Miller to NM, 3-28-76.
“ruefully”: NM to Henry Miller, 4-13-76.
“He has such”: GAL, xiv.
“One had to go back”: Ibid., 4.
“Miller at his best”: Ibid.
“entered a town house”: Ibid., 15–17.
“inestimable”: Ibid., 17.
“the uncharted negotiations”: Ibid., 186.
“The narcissist suffers”: Ibid., 187–88.
“To be living”: Ibid., 189.
“putting much of myself”: NM to Henry Miller, 5-25-76.
“a path through my financial difficulties”: NM to EY, 4-13-76.
piece, published in New York: “A Harlot High and Low: Reconnoitering the Secret Government,” New York, 8-16-76, 22–46.
“I’ve finally come”: NM to EY, 4-13-76.
“as something between a girlfriend”: TC, 204–5.
“talked about her”: Ibid.
“a towering depression”: NM to Lucid, 11-23-76.
published in the Times: “The Search for Carter,” NYTM, 9-26-76; rpt., in part, TOT, 948–59.
“haranguing a future president”: TOT, 955.
“the possibility that Satanism”: Ibid., 956.
“the twice dull sense”: Ibid., 959.
wrote to Knox: NM to MK, 11-25-76.
“romantically overblown”: William Gass, “The Essential Henry Miller, According to Norman Mailer,” NYTBR, 10-24-76, 1–2.
“The room was so packed”: TC, 200.
Jacqueline Onassis: Guest list from Charlotte Curtis, “The Fashionable Armies of the Night,” NYT, 12-20-76, C14.
“as if his very life”: TC, 201.
“to go beyond one’s reach”: Herbert Mitgang, “Mailer Takes on the Heavyweight Novel,” NYT, 12-10-76, C24.
John Ehrlichman: “A Conversation Between Norman Mailer and John Ehrlichman,” Chic 2, December 1976, 16–40, 70, 88–92.
memoir of Hemingway’s son: Preface to Papa: A Personal Memoir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976).
a screenplay: “Trial of the Warlock,” Playboy, December 1976, 121–32, 235–56.
“To my surprise”: Herbert Mitgang, “Mailer Takes on the Heavyweight Novel,” NYT, C24.
“Obviously, others also deserved”: NM to Meyer Levin, 1-6-77.
“resisting intensely”: NM to MK, 1-14-77.
Harvard instructor: Robert Gorham Davis to NM, 12-14-76.
“the total inventive freedom”: NM to Davis, 1-7-77.
“plenty of pitfalls”: NM to Susan Mailer, 3-14-77.
ELEVEN: DEATH WISHES: GILMORE AND ABBOTT
In addition to the sources identified below, the following were drawn on: JML’s “Mailer Log”; JML’s and Lawrence Grobel’s unpublished interviews with NM and Lawrence Schiller; JML’s unpublished interviews with BW. NM’s letters are located at the HRC.
“You sentenced me”: ES, 492.
cover of Newsweek: 11-29-76.
“It was an arresting”: Kevin Bezner, “Mailer on Gilmore,” Washington Book Review, January/February 1980. 4.
“Dr. L. Grant Christensen”: Barry Farrell, “Merchandising Gary Gilmore’s Dance of Death,” New West Magazine, December 1976; rpt., Barry Farrell, How I Got to Be This Hip: The Collected Works of One of America’s Preeminent Journalists, ed. Steve Hawk (NY: Washington Square Press, 1999), 118.
“Nicole and I”: Barry Farrell and Lawrence Schiller, “Playboy Interview: Gary Gilmore,” Playboy, April 1977, 77.
“I could see he”: “Norman Mailer,” Publishers Weekly, 10-8-79, 8.
$60,000: Grace Lichtenstein, “Gilmore’s Agent an Entrepreneur Who Specializes in the Sensational,” NYT, 1-20-77.
contract with Warner Books: The contract, which specifies that NM and Schiller share the copyright, is in the HRC.
$500,000: MBM, 425–26.
front page of the National Enquirer: Dennis D’Antonio and Thomas Kuncl, “173 Death Cell Letters Take You Inside the Mind of Gary Gilmore,” National Enquirer, 1-11-77, 1, 32–33.
“I do not believe”: Schiller to NM, 12-3-79.
An American Tragedy: (NY: Boni & L
iveright, 1925). NM said that Dreiser’s novel was a model for ES; see SA, 90.
“All he does”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story Behind The Executioner’s Song: A Conversation with Lawrence Schiller,” MR (2007), 100.
six months: NM to Jack Abbott, 8-5-78.
“The Saint and the Psychopath”: As noted in a draft of a contract with Bantam that Schiller attempted to negotiate (HRC).
a quality that was almost saintly: John W. Aldridge, “An Interview with Norman Mailer,” PR, July 1980; rpt., CNM, 264.
Trader Vic’s: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 97.
“a man who was quintessentially American”: Aldridge, CNM, 270.
“She’s been injured”: Kevin Bezner, “Mailer on Gilmore,” Washington Book Review, 6.
“probably the most open”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 98.
Malibu: Ibid., 97.
$25,000: Grace Lichtenstein, “Gilmore’s Agent an Entrepreneur,” NYT, 1-20-77.
“a dictionary”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 82.
“not prettily”: TC, 232.
“Our life was coalescing”: Ibid., 210.
angry letter to the editor: NM to Robert Spitzler, 12-9-76.
“you need not take it”: NM to Carol Holmes, 4-20-77.
“the minutiae”: TC, 233.
“She was his practical”: JML interview with Aurora Huston, 1-15-12.
“a bloody rupture”: NM to JML, 12-22-77.
“At the time”: TC, 190.
“Norman and I had”: JML interview with NCM, 1-30-09.
“pretending to be bolder”: TC, 219.
“thrilled”: Ibid., 218.
“tons of scintillating”: NM to MK, 8-2-77.
“At some point”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 7-29-09.
Stephen recalled that Mailer: JML interview with Stephen Mailer, 11-20-11.
“He was a terrible gambler”: JML interview with Peter Alson, 4-23-12.
“like a lawyer preparing briefs”: NM to Gordon Lish, 11-15-77.
“No, no, no”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 104.
“second-hand and rather fanciful”: NM to Jonathan Silverman, 10-4-93.
“because I knew that the Mormons”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 103.
fifteen thousand pages: “An Afterword,” ES, 1051.
“and suddenly, Schiller”: Aldridge, CNM, 268.
voyeur: Robert Friedman, “Hell’s Agent,” Esquire, October 1978, 77.
Minamata: Words and Photos: (NY: Alskog-Sensorium and Holt Rinehart Winston, 1975).