Norman Mailer
Page 114
“I would get”: Ibid.
“I always felt”: NM to Richard Stratton, 12-31-86.
“Anything’s easier than writing”: Dinitia Smith, “Tough Guys Make Movies,” New York, 33.
“an excruciating activity”: Alan Richman, “No Longer Such a Tough Guy, Norman Mailer Frets over His Shaky Career as a Filmmaker,” People, 10-5-87, 40.
“an ideal war”: Bonnie Barber and Gregory Katz, “Camera Angles,” Provincetown Arts, 21.
promised to visit: NM to Farbar, 12-31-86.
“a million dollars in advance”: NM to Richard Stratton, 12-31-86.
“if this picture hits”: NM to MK, 1-6-87.
“I respect the psychological”: NM to Farbar, 2-19-87.
twenty-four films in twelve days: Tim Miller, “ ‘Proud Father’: Mailer Pleased with Tough Guys,” Cape Cod Times, 8-14-87.
“as if everyone”: Roger Ebert, Two Weeks in the Midday Sun: A Cannes Notebook (NY: Andrews & McMeel, 1987), 146.
“a wonderfully exaggerated”: Vincent Canby, “Pialat Film Gets Top Prize at Cannes,” NYT, 5-20-87, C24.
“All my life”: NM to Farbar, 6-15-87.
“Norman and Norris”: TC, 286.
“It will be good”: Kate Mailer, “The Knife’s Edge,” MR, 37.
“the best boyfriend”: Kate married Guy Lancaster, a writer who grew up in Bermuda, in July 1993.
ninety pages a month: NM to Farbar, 6-15-87.
“about the CIA”: The first public mention of the CIA may have been in Todd McCarthy, “Mailer Gives Film Another Fling,” Variety.
guest list: JML files.
“interviewed Mailer”: Carole Mallory, “An Interview with Norman Mailer,” L.A. Alive, 9-18-87, 25.
“I stopped drinking”: Ebert, CNM, 357–58.
“He said his double life”: TC, 322.
“to float the Queen Mary”: NM to JML, 10-15-87.
“It’s as if”: Ibid.
“with any real happiness”: NM to Susan Mailer, 2-18-87.
“amusing vagueness”: Mark Singer, “The Pictures: Tough Guy,” New Yorker, 30.
“Tarantino”: Ibid., 31.
“Writing is the farm”: NM to Pat Smith, 2-18-97.
“It was one of the best”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 4-17-12.
“a species of spiritual incarceration”: NM to Farbar, 1-9-88. See NM’s comments about Farbar’s suicide, and speaking at his funeral: NM to Charles McGrath, NYTBR, 12-20-99.
Smack Goddess: (NY: Carol, 1990).
“look for some needed”: NM to Richard Stratton, 11-25-87.
“a distinguished minor artist”: NM to Luke Breit, 1-14-88.
“It’s like going back”: NM to Stratton, 11-25-87.
Ragtime: (NY: Random House, 1975). See PAP, 130.
William King “Bill” Harvey: An Indiana lawyer, Harvey (1915–76) began his government career with the FBI, but moved to the CIA in 1947. Stationed in Washington, D.C., in 1951, he uncovered British diplomat Kim Philby as a spy. In 1955 in Berlin, he tapped into Russian phone lines via a tunnel over a quarter of a mile long. King disliked the Ivy League graduates who dominated the CIA, as NM shows in HG. At the end of his career, he worked to try to topple Castro.
fictional stand-in: NM claimed in the “Author’s Note” to HG that he “felt bound by the precise edge” of Exner’s accounts of her life, and to have greater freedom to invent, he substituted Modene Murphy. He was in the same situation with several other historical characters, and did not refrain from putting words in their mouths, as he notes. Potential legal issues may have made him take this course with Exner, who was still alive when HG was published.
Judith Campbell Exner: A controversial figure, Exner (1934–99) told the story (with Ovid Demaris) in Judith Exner: My Story (NY: Grove, 1977) of her involvement with JFK and others, but modified it in interviews years later.
“wilderness of mirrors”: Angleton coined the phrase to describe the layered dissimulations of spies and counterspies, moles and defectors. In his author’s note, NM singles out David C. Martin’s Wilderness of Mirrors (NY: Harper & Row, 1980) as a key source for his portraits of Angleton and Harvey.
“astonishingly well”: HG, 72.
“a large and detailed mural”: “Author’s Note,” HG, 1288.
event timeline: JML files.
fourth chart: An image of this fourth chart is reproduced in an essay on the NM holdings at the HRC: Cathy Henderson, Richard W. Oram, Molly Schwartzburg, and Molly Hardy, “Mailer Takes on America: Images from the Ransom Center Archive,” MR (2007), 141–75.
four to six days: NM to Farbar, 4-22-88.
Trump’s black helicopters: Julie Baumgold, “Mr. Lucky and the Champs,” New York, 2-15-88, 35–40.
Atlantic City to watch Tyson: “Mr. Peeper’s Nights: Good Night Irene,” New York, 7-11-88, 15.
“if two people”: Ibid., 16.
essay in Spin: “Fury, Fear, Philosophy: Understanding Mike Tyson,” Spin, September 1988, 40–44, 78.
two advance excerpts: “A Piece of Harlot’s Ghost,” Esquire, July 1988, 80–90; “The Changing of the Guard,” Playboy, December 1988, 86–88, 196–98.
His endorsement appeared: “Jackson Is a Friend of Life’s Victims,” NYT, 4-18-88, 23.
“Reading good work”: NM to Joyce Carol Oates, 7-27-88.
Libra: (NY: Viking, 1988).
“I found it”: JML interview with Don DeLillo, 3-29-10.
“What a terrific book”: NM to Don DeLillo, 8-25-88.
“has been damn decent”: NM to Farbar, 10-14-88.
“all the steaming shit”: NM to Edward McAlice, 2-1-89.
suspicious death: Dorothy Hunt died in a December 1972 plane crash in Chicago with $10,000 in her purse as the Watergate scandal was unfolding.
“characterological theoretician”: HG, 446.
“as complex and wholly”: HG, 498–99.
“originates in the ovum”: Ibid.
“like the corporal lobes”: 499.
“how spies are able”: HG, 177.
redundancy: Jonathan Franzen, “I, Spy,” L.A. Times Book Review, 9-29-91, 1, 8.
The Satanic Verses: (NY: Viking, 1988).
“I call on all zealous”: W. J. Weatherby, Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death (NY: Carroll & Graf, 1990), 154.
“to give voice”: Ibid., 133.
went into hiding: Sheila Rule, “Khomeini Urges Muslims to Kill Author of Novel,” NYT, 2-15-89.
rally of support: Richard Bernstein, “Passages in Defense of a Colleague: Writers Read and Speak for Rushdie,” NYT, 2-23-89.
“took our seats”: DeLillo to JML, 5-19-12.
“wished to show”: “A Folly Repeated,” Writer’s Digest, July 1989; rpt., TOT, 1059–62.
“with the inner temerity”: Steve MacDonogh, ed., The Rushdie Letters: Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Write (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 73.
“great fun”: NM to Styron, 2-3-89.
“A number of years ago”: “Styron’s Novels Have Tackled, Boldly and Yet Patiently, the Great Issues of Our Time,” MacDowell Colony News, Fall/Winter 1988, 3.
“In the doldrums”: NM to William Styron, 2-3-89.
“now approaching the 1500”: NM to Kate Mailer, 4-18-89.
“a 300-lb greased beast”: NM to Jim Beattie, 4-22-88.
“I’m still staggering”: NM to MK, 5-17-88.
restatement of his theological ideas: “Cosmic Venture: A Meditation of God at War,” Esquire, December 1989, 156–57.
“Communism is the entropy”: HG, 394.
“Forgive the sons”: Ibid., 157.
“We never really talked”: JML interview with Fred Ambrose, 8-16-09.
twice on the cover: Provincetown Arts, 1987 and 1999.
“took comfort in walking”: Christopher Busa, “This Is a Town Worth Digging In and Fighting For,” MR (2008), 94.
“my elephant”: NM to MK, 3-15-90.
“P[oly]M[orphus]”: JML files.
�
�convinces him that his life”: Ibid.
“I nod my head”: NM to Bonnie B., 5-10-90.
“we can nail”: NM to Alex Hicks, 5-10-90.
“write ten to twenty”: NM to Gottfried and Renate Helnwein, 5-29-90.
“a fairly ambitious book”: NM to Tom Fiske, 12-13-90.
“egomaniac”: Veronica Windholz, “Reading Mailer in Brooklyn,” MR (2008), 203–15.
“Read it?”: James Wolcott, “Happy Man Haunted by Papa,” Observer, 10-13-91.
American Psycho: (NY: Vintage, 1991).
“bog-ridden beginning”: “To Whom It May Concern” letter, appended to NM’s letter to Tina Brown, 5-16-88.
“unmitigated torture”: “Children of the Pied Piper,” TOT, 1067.
“kills man, woman”: Ibid., 1070.
“to shock the unshockable”: Ibid., 1069.
“a tidal wave”: Ibid., 1067.
“Murder is now”: Ibid., 1073.
“swordfish meatloaf”: Ibid., 1071.
“silk satin D’Orsay”: Ibid., 1069.
“acts of machicolated butchery”: Ibid., 1075.
“Fiction can serve”: Ibid., 1073.
“Bateman is driven”: Ibid., 1075.
“to have something new”: Ibid.
“In the wake”: Ibid.
“we know no more”: Ibid., 1076.
“extremely impressive”: JML interview with Don DeLillo, 3-29-10.
“unbelievable and inconceivable”: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “The Alpha and the Omega of Norman Mailer,” NYT, 9-26-91, C15, C20.
“Vanity is the abominable”: HG, 1054.
“I am ready”: Ibid., 1272.
“Someone larger”: Ibid., 1277.
“Mailer really comes”: John Simon, “The Company They Keep,” NYT, 9-29-91.
“at the pace”: John W. Aldridge, “Mailer Spies on the CIA,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Books, 9-29-91, 1, 4.
“continuous emphasis”: Christopher Hitchens, “On the Imagining of Conspiracy,” London Review of Books, 11-7-91, 6–10.
“a demented Waring blender”: John Simon, “Mailer on the March,” Hudson Review, Autumn 2000, 541–45.
Mailer contacted Times publisher: NM to Aldridge, 1-2-92.
“Tell him,” went the message: Quoted in NM’s reply to Simon, “A Critic with Balance: A Letter from Norman Mailer,” NYTBR, 11-17-91, 7.
“prolixity”: Simon, comments appended to “A Critic with Balance.”
“a fair and balanced”: Rebecca Sinkler, comments appended to “A Critic with Balance.”
“in the long run”: Rebecca Sinkler, “Picks, Pans and Fragile Egos,” Civilization, July/August 1991, 48–53.
“what in espionage”: E. Howard Hunt, “Hocus Bogus,” GQ, November 1991, 246.
“I will suggest”: HG, 726.
“Never tell your wife”: Ibid., 437.
FOURTEEN: A MERRY LIFE AND A MARRIED ONE
In addition to the sources identified below, the following were drawn on: JML’s “Mailer Log”; JML’s unpublished interviews with NM and BW. NM’s letters are located at the HRC.
“he was still able”: TC, 318.
excerpts from Harlot’s Ghost: Appeared in the following: Esquire, July 1988; Playboy, December 1988; Story, Autumn 1989; Rolling Stone, 7-11, 8-8, 8-22-91; Paris Review, Fall 1991; PR, Fall 1991; New York, 9-23-91; NYRB, 9-26-91; NYTBR, 9-29-91; Cosmopolitan, March 1992.
New York State Author: Appointed 11-13-91; see AP, “Mailer Dubbed Big Apple’s Author,” 11-14-91.
Don Juan in Hell: Presented at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, 2-15-93.
A Century of Arts & Letters: (NY: Columbia University Press, 1998).
wrote Hillary Clinton a long letter: NM to Hillary Clinton, 6-26-92.
report on the Republican convention: “By Heaven Inspired,” New Republic, 10-12-92; rpt., TOT, 1092–1113.
beginning “Harlot’s Grave”: Charles Trueheart, “Norman Mailer, Company Man,” Washington Post, 9-23-91, C1, C4; Bruce Cook, “Mailer Muzzles His Mouthpiece,” L.A. Life, 10-22-91, 18–19; NM to Alex Hicks, 1-2-92; NM to MK, 5-19-92.
asked Gabriel García Márquez: NM to Márquez, 6-20-91.
“I can promise”: NM to Castro, 6-20-91.
review of Oliver Stone’s: “Footfalls in the Crypt,” Vanity Fair, February 1992, 124–29, 171.
JFK: Warner Brothers; directed by Oliver Stone.
“Earl and Lyndon”: Vanity Fair, April 1992, 200–6.
Dynamite Club: Scott Spencer, “The Old Man and the Novel,” NYTM, 9-22-91, 40.
Jim Hougan: Perhaps his most important book is Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA (NY: Random House, 1984).
Dick Russell: He wrote The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK: Richard Case Nagell (NY: Carroll & Graf, 1993), and collaborated with Jesse Ventura on American Conspiracies (NY: Skyhorse, 2010).
Edward Jay Epstein: His writings about JFK’s assassination have been collected into one volume: The Assassination Chronicles (NY: Carroll & Graf, 1992).
Mailer had met and head-butted: JML interview with Don DeLillo, 3-29-10.
The JFK Assassination: (NY: Signet, 1992).
“a merry life and a married one”: MSC, 94.
“It all made sense”: TC, 316.
“an old girlfriend”: Ibid., 315–16.
“This other life”: Ibid., 318.
“Are you in a dilemma”: Ibid., 320–21.
“I’m going to tell you”: Ibid., 323.
“I was concerned”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 5-21-12.
“shockingly brazen”: TC, 324.
last tryst: Mallory, Loving Mailer, 177.
“My conscience”: Ibid., 186.
“to feel whole”: Ibid., 199.
“desperate to get out”: JML interview with Erin Cressida Wilson, 11-15-11.
“Everything changed when he met Norris”: JML questions for Lois Wilson, conducted by Erin Cressida Wilson, 11-15-11.
“Judith got suspicious”: JML questions for Eileen Fredrickson, 10-15-11, conducted by Peter Lennon.
“I’m too happily married”: Dana Kennedy, “Norman Mailer: Back in the Ring at 68,” Boston Globe, 10-31-91, E4.
“a mellower Mailer”: Maureen O’Brien, “On the Publicity Trail with Norman Mailer,” Publishers Weekly, 10-25-91.
“a softer Mailer”: Tim Warren, “The Softer Norman Mailer,” Baltimore Sun, 9-29-91.
“attestedly happy”: Peter Stothard, “Soft Spots in a Tough Disguise,” Times Saturday Review (London), 10-12-91, 16–17.
“a more content man”: Maureen O’Brien, “On the Publicity Trail with Norman Mailer,” Publishers Weekly.
“his inner voice”: Julia Braun Kessler, “Mailer’s Many Lives,” Life: The World and I, January 1992, 335.
“Mailer: Oh, I wouldn’t dare”: Transcript of Talking with David Frost, 1-24-92.
“obviously adored him”: TC, 324.
“very gracious”: JML questions for Eileen Fredrickson, 10-15-11, conducted by Peter Lennon.
“These women took over”: TC, 325.
“devilish air”: Ibid., 326.
“Well, Sam”: Ibid.
“I was on the brink”: Ibid., 327.
“extremely intense personal”: James Toback, speaking at the Norris Church Mailer tribute, 4-22-12, http:/vimeo.com/43772583.
“felt desperately wrong”: TC, 328–31.
“I loved our life”: Ibid., 331–34.
“were both naive”: JML interview with Aurora Huston, 1-17-12.
“that crazy wild man”: TC, 335.
most enjoyable course: Pete Hamill, “Kindred Spirits,” Art News, November 1995, 210.
“I could’ve written”: John Baron, “Self Propelled: Mailer—with Ego Intact—Looks at Picasso’s Early Years,” Chicago Sun-Times, 11-26-95, B70.
“eight happy weeks”: POP, xi.
“I think if you”: Hamilton Kahn, “Chapter Two,” Cape Cod T
imes, 7-23-93, C3.
Fernande Olivier: Souvenirs Intimes, ed. Gilbert Krill (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1988).
authorized biography: A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881–1906 (NY: Random House, 1991).
“Nothing, of course, can equal”: NM to Jacques?, 6-25-92.
introduced Mailer to Richardson: Barbara Probst Solomon, “Callow Young Genius,” New York, 9-11-95, 81; Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, “Norman Conquest,” Entertainment, 11-10-9.
eight thousand words: Doris Athineos, “Picasso Biographer in a Blue Period: Has Mailer Painted Him into a Corner?,” New York Observer, 9-6-93; The Cubist Rebel (NY: Random House, 1996).
“I was apprehensive”: Doris Athineos, “Picasso Biographer in a Blue Period,” New York Observer.
“very interested, eager”: JML, “Long Legs, the American Tolstoy, Oswald and the KGB: A Conversation with Lawrence Schiller,” MR (2009), 32.
investigative reporter Gerald Posner: The author of investigative books on Hitler, the Mafia, 9/11, and several other subjects, Posner (b. 1954) published in 1993 perhaps his most important book, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK.
“I had a double motive”: Wil Haygood, “Mailer Obsessed,” Boston Globe, 5-2-95, 59.
“the virtual Oklahoma land grab”: Peter DePree, “Oswald’s Ghost: An Interview with Norman Mailer,” Bloomsbury Review, March/April 1996, 3; and in slightly different wording in OT, 349.
“get me beefed up”: Sean Abbott, “America’s Obsessions: Norman Mailer Talks About Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK, the KGB, O. J. Simpson, and the Nasty Nineties,” At Random, Summer 1995, 14.
“schtupping fat, old”: TC, 335.
“I doubt if there were”: Wil Haygood, “Mailer Obsessed,” Boston Globe, 68.
“It doesn’t matter”: NM to MK, 3-8-93.
“small hard eggs”: TC, 336.
“I’m not sorry”: Ibid., 339.
shown the tiny apartment: JML, “Long Legs, the American Tolstoy, Oswald and the KGB,” MR, 34. Descriptions of the Minsk operation, unless otherwise noted, are taken from ibid.
interviews with Schiller: Patricia Holt, “Norman Mailer Tells ‘Oswald’s Tale,’ ” San Francisco Chronicle, 5-1-95, E2.
“But if you give it”: JML, “Long Legs, the American Tolstoy, Oswald and the KGB,” MR, 43–44.
“Of course, the subject”: Ibid., 46.
“Norman went ballistic”: Ibid., 56–57.
“We were worried”: Ibid., 57.