Project Mailer - User contributions [en]

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-17T23:24:08Z

NrmMGA5108: /* completed: Advertisements for Others */ new section

{{Talk header}}
[[/Archive 202504/]]

== Final edits ==
Hello, my article is complete: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Ernest_and_Norman_(Exit_Music)|Ernest and Norman (Exit Music)]]
:{{Reply to|Flowersbloom}} great, thank you. I made some corrections. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, Dr. Lucas. Below is the link to my edited article:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:ASpeed/sandbox
:{{Reply to|ASpeed}} great. Let me know when it’s finished and posted, and I’l have a look. It appears as if you still have a bit of work to do. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. I have completed most of my Remediation Articles, but I still show issues for the one named, "[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman]].

Based on the latest updates, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Battles_for_Regard,_Writerly_and_Otherwise|Battles for Regard, Writerly and Otherwise]] looks good with exception of including a '''category'''.
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} this one is good. I made some corrections before removing the banner, mostly in your sources. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

May you let me know if there is anything I can do on my end to resolve the issues with the first [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|article]]?

[[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 21:47, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} looking very good, but some sources missing page numbers. Please see to those. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

:::Thank you @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] . I will review those and respond when complete. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 22:47, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. Thank you for your feedback. A review of article additions was made for source pages. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 20:22, 11 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{Reply to| ALedezma}} ok, looking good. I made some corrections. There's one final thing to do: no footnotes should appear in the notes section; use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead; I did one to show you how to use the template. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] Changes were done to footnote sources. Thank you! [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I finished my remediation article https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 19:44, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TWietstruk}} good work so far, but there is more to do: placement of footnotes (eliminate spaces around them and punctuation always goes ''before'' the footnote.); proofread for typos; fix all red errors at the bottom (most of these are from errors in sourcing); works cited entries should be bulleted list and eliminate space between entries. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Final edit and no errors with some help from @NRMMGA5108, @JKilchenmann. Please mark me as complete. On to help someone else with the things I've learned
https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 17:52, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I have finished my assigned remediation article: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Jive-Ass_Aficionado:_Why_Are_We_in_Vietnam%3F_and_Hemingway%27s_Moral_Code#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHemingway2003-24
Username ADear.
:{{Reply to|ADear}} thank you. I have marked this as complete. Please be sure you sign your talk page posts correctly. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished remediating my assigned article. Please review it at your earliest convenience. The link is here: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer's_Mythmaking_in_An_American_Dream_and_“The_White_Negro”|Norman Mailer's Mythmaking in An American Dream and “The White Negro”]]—[[User:Erhernandez|Erhernandez]] ([[User talk:Erhernandez|talk]]) 08:52, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Erhernandez}} well done! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. I removed your banner after making a few corrections. Please have a look over it and move on to the next thing. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:06, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::@Grlucas, I have tried correcting the sfn codes in my citations. I was able to get the 2 web citations to link correctly. But for some reason, I cannot get the Mailer 1967 film Wild 90 citation to link to the reference list. Please advise. [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 20:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} OK, all fixed and published. Thanks. Please move on to another remediation. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:46, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.
:{{Reply to|APKnight25}} great work! Please help other editors to complete the volume. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:34, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} great work so far. Your references must use templates, please. Blockquotes must also be done correctly. No spaces or line breaks before or after the {{tl|pg}} template. Footnote placement is also off (punctuation goes before the footnote; no spaces before or after the footnote). I will add the abstract and url. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:30, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe there have been some updates made to the project. I believe I have also updated the works cited section to show correct templates. Please let me know if there is anything further that I need to do. Thank you, Caitlin.
::{{reply to| CVinson}} please sign your talk page posts correctly. Thanks. You still need to do some work on the sources. Use the <code>|author-mask=1</code> in your template for repeated author names. Also, you must eliminate the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” message at the bottom. No spaces or returns before or after the {{tl|pg}} call, as I already mentioned above. No parenthetical citations should be left, either; those should all be remediated to footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:50, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I have updated the sources and updated the in-text citations. I am still having trouble with the "Harv and Sfn no-target errors." I have not been successful in fixing this error and have tried multiple ways to fix it. —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 8:18, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

::::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I see that I still have a red X for my remediation assignment. Is there something else I am still missing? —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{reply to| CVinson}} sorry, I'm just getting back to it. There are quite a few punctuation errors. Some left out and others appear after the {{tl|sfn}}. I'm trying to correct those I see, but you should have a look, too. Page is designated as <code>p=</code> in {{tl|sfn}}, not <code>pg=</code>; and a span of pages needs <code>pp=</code>. Again, I have tried to correct these. I removed the banner, but please have another look through. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:01, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norman Mailer Today'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up my remediation article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer Today|Norman Mailer Today]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 18:20, 3 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Kamyers}} Great work! Please help your fellow editors finish the volume, or pick something to work on in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010|Volume 4]]. Thanks, and well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:00, 4 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of “The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished my remediation of Jennifer Yirinec's article: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”|The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”]] Thank you for your assistance with the article. It is ready for its final review! [[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 10:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} a stellar job. Well done. I removed the banner, so you can move on to another article. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:12, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediations ==
Dr. Lucas, I have begun work on the tributes for volume 5. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Grace Notes|Grace Notes]] by Stephen Borkowski is ready for its final review.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 12:58, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} Well done! Banner removed, url added. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:18, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

==Oohh Normie Final Edits==
Hi Dr. Lucas, I have finished my article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/"Oohh_Normie_—_You're_Sooo_Hemingway":_Mailer_Memories_and_Encounters|Oohh Normie, You're Sooo Hemingway]]. Please let me know if there is anything I need to fix. [[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Tbara4554}} thank you. I made some corrections and removed the banner. You might want to have another look over it. Please move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:53, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harlot's Ghost, Bildungsroman, Masculinity and Hemingway ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Harlot%27s_Ghost,_Bildungsroman,_Masculinity_and_Hemingway

[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 21:22, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} excellent. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:39, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== I am done with this ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Situating_Hemingway:_Mailer,_Style,_Ethics
:Received. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:29, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Review PM Article ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|here]] is my remediated article, ready for review![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 12:21, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} great work. I have removed the banner, so you are good to move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:20, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have finished my remedidation project and I am ready for it to be reviewed. '''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]

Thanks,

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 13:04, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work so far. Please remove wikilinks. Change ' and " to typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. And all red errors at the bottom of the page need to be taken care of. These are likely all from coding errors in your sources. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:24, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have removed the wikilinks, changed to the correct typographic style and updated my sources.
'''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe] Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:55, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

[I forgot to fill out the summary box. I am adding my summary]
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you're getting there! It looks great. You must eliminate all the red errors at the bottom. These appear when there are errors in your citations. Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:15, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

@{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything I can think of and I still have harv and sfn no-target errors and harv and sfn multiple-target errors and cs1 uses editors parameter. Do I not include the editor? [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 16:03, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have managed to get rid of two of the red target errors. I am still working on finding the harv sfn multiple target error. Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 20:37, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything i can think of to remove the last red error flag. I had to turn it in. I don't know that else I can do in this situation. I was given citation that did not follow any of the given formats. [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:45, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} all parenthetical citations must be remediated to {{tl|sfn}}; none of yours are. Get these done, then we can worry about the errors. (Some notes on sources: any generic <code><nowiki>{{citation}}</nowiki></code> will not be correct. I see you have a book review by Marshall that has no source (I tried to find the original and cannot; this is a weird citation; I'll continue to look for it). There's also one that looks like a film that should use the [[w:Template:Cite AV media|<code>Cite AV media</code> template]].) Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:16, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Submission ==

Hello!
Here's my remediated article; [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Devil's_Party:_Reading_and_Wreaking_Vengeance_in_The_Castle_in_the_Forest|The Devil's Party: Reading and Wreaking Vengeance in ''The Castle in the Forest'']].
Thanks! Please let me know if there's anything I can review or correct.
[[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 13:23, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} nice work! Banner removed, so please move on to something else in the volume. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Vol. 4: Rumors of Grace article remediated ==

I believe I have completed remediation of ''[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Rumors_of_Grace:_God-Language_in_Hemingway_and_Mailer|Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer]]'', vol. 4. I was having last-minute trouble with sfn errors for sources without authors, but Justin Kilchenmann helped me out, so I think they are fixed.
:{{Reply to|Sherrilledwards}} You have done a remarkable job—a real Herculean effort! Footnotes should not go in any notes. See those I changed; the others should be changed in the same way. I have done some, but the others have to be fixed, I'm afraid. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}}I believe I have completed these fixes, so the article is again ready for review. [[User:Sherrilledwards|Sherrilledwards]] ([[User talk:Sherrilledwards|talk]]) 15:49, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to| Sherrilledwards}} truly exceptional work—a model remediation! Marked as complete. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:30, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

Hi Dr. Lucas - I have finished remediating the article, [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Inside Norman Mailer|Inside Norman Mailer]]. Please let me know if I need to make any adjustments. Thank you! [[User:Chelsey.brantley|Chelsey.brantley]] ([[User talk:Chelsey.brantley|talk]]) 18:09, 7 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Chelsey.brantley}} good work! Please help with another article from volume 4. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:36, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

I hope I am doing this is right. I have finished remediating my article about Norman Mailer and its in my designated sandbox [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer:_Playboy_Magazine_Heavyweight here.]
If there are any last minute edits, let me know. I got the last of the errors removed yesterday. And I believe we are on the same page with leaving the in-line citations for ''Playboy'' to be as is, since the author didn't put them down in the works cited. [[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:14, 7 April 2025 (EDT)Nina Mizner
:{{Reply to|NrmMGA5108}} looking good! So, the parenthetical citations still in the article, I'm assuming, are there because of those missing sources? Please check your page numbers; some seem to be off. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:04, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I found the page number error and its corrected, and yes all the parenthetical citations should be referencing issues of the ''playboy'' magazine, which were not listed in the works cited. --[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| NrmMGA5108}} it looks great. I removed the banner! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:29, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Remediation From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity? ==

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

I also made additional edits to my short footnotes and noticed that my citations did not link to my references - which has been fixed.

I have tested all of my citations, and they all work.

Here is my article by Alexander Hicks, ''From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity?''

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/From_Here_to_Eternity_and_The_Naked_and_the_Dead:_Premiere_to_Eternity%3F

Have a great day.
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} Please always sign your talk page posts. Several “quoted items” in the article appear as ‘quoted items’; these must be corrected, please. No spaces or returns should surround {{tl|pg}} calls. Multiple page numbers should look like this <code><nowiki>{{sfn|Moretti|1996|pp=11-14}}</nowiki></code>; note the double <code>pp</code>. There seem to be many typos. I corrected some for you, but you must see to the rest. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:16, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

Are these the only additional corrections that need to be made? This is different from what you mentioned before.

I just want to be sure that I have hit everything.

Also can you verify what other typos you are seeing, I have ran through this twice.

If something is spelt a certain way, for example "Soljer", I have left it that way. Since it is mentioned like that in the article.
—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 06:49, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

I have gone through and fixed all of the short footnotes.

I have gone line by line with a ruler to look at any typos, and fixed the words that I found that had a dash in them/needed to be lowercased.

I have also fixed the quotations.

—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 12:31, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} much better. Periods go inside quotations marks; I think I fixed these, but please check. Also, there are no spaces before footnotes; again, I did a find/replace, but you should check. Also, check that all titles of novels are italicized (if it's italicized in the PDF, then it has to be italicized in the remediation, including abbreviations, like ''Naked''); I fixed a couple. Also, no extra spaces; there should only be a single blank space between paragraphs. There are quite a few little details that needed (need?) fixing. I removed the banner, but please check my work. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 12:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon” ==

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

=Remediation of "Cluster Seeds and the Mailer Legacy"=
Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have completed the remediation of [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Cluster_Seeds_and_the_Mailer_Legacy&oldid=18200| my article], and it is ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 11:32, 8 April 2025 (EDT)@ADavis
:{{Reply to| ADavis}} got it. I think I check it yesterday and removed the banner then. Please move on to another piece. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediating Article: Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing Volume 4. ==

Hello Dr. Lucas,

I have completed remediating my article. Here is the link [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|The Mailer Review: Volume 4: Mailer, Hemingway, Boxing (2010)]] [[User:JBrown|JBrown]] ([[User talk:JBrown|talk]]) 13:01, 8 April 2025 (EDT)JBrown
:{{Reply to|JBrown}} a good start, but all parenthetical citations need to be footnotes. Also, check your headers. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norris Church Mailer'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up remediating the article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer|Norris Church Mailer]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 13:42, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Kamyers}} awesome work! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

I hope I am doing this right. Here is the link for my completed Remediation article: [http://The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Encounters_with_Mailer Encounters with Mailer].

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

Patrick Riley
:{{Reply to|Priley1984}} thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:40, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place ==

Link:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_An_Expected_Encounter_in_an_Unexpected_Place

Winnie Verna
:{{Reply to|Wverna}} received, thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:51, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== E.Mosley ==

Good evening, @Grlucas. I have completed my Remediation Articles[[https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/On_Reading_Mailer_Too_Young]]. The article I had was " On Reading Mailer Too Young Volume 4, 2010
:{{Reply to| Essence903m}} thank you. I had to fix and clean-up quite a bit. Your saves also do not include summaries. When you move on to your next article, please be more careful and follow the instructions. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Kynndra Watson ==

Good Evening, @grlucas. i have completed my Remediation articles: Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law and Volume 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D.

Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} thank you, and this is a good start, but there are still many items that need to be cleaned up, like footnote indications (They go after punctuation), citation errors (all the red errors at the bottom need to be seen to), extra spaces and ALL CAPS need to be removed. Please see other completed articles for models. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:18, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/What Would Be the Fun of That?|"What Would Be the Fun of That?"]] by Peter Alson.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:33, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} awesome! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:21, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “Remembering Norris Church” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris Church|“Remembering Norris Church”]] by John Bowers.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 16:17, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} and again, excellent! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:22, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “The Norris I Knew” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/The Norris I Knew|“The Norris I Knew”]] by Christopher Busa.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:04, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} rockin’! 👍🏼 —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Norris Mailer" Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Norris Mailer|"Norris Mailer"]] by Nancy Collins.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} thanks again. You’re tearing it up. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:32, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Rise Above It|"Rise Above It"]] by David Ebershoff—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 11:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} excellent. Many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:15, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Additional Articles ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have remediated [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/A_View_Through_the_Prism&oldid=18744|"A View Through the Prism"], [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/Lip_Liner|"Lip Liner"], and [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Living_Room_Show#|"The Living Room Show"] in Volume 5. They are ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 12:31, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ADavis}} great work. Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:26, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

Dr. Lucas - I sent a Talk Page notification that I had completed the page I remediated on 29 March. The table indicates I haven't done anything yet. I sent it from the Talk Page from the article site. I don't see a response from that notification, but I had received one from you earlier in the process.
I don't understand what happened.

[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 14:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|LogansPop22}} sorry if I missed that. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works|this article]], right? It's looking great, though all the parenthetical citations must be converted to footnotes using {{tl|sfn}} and some of the author names in your notes should use {{tl|harvtxt}}. I added the "citations" section for you. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law ==

@Grlucas, I have made some additional edits to this [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law article] in Volume 5 by correcting most of the citations. There are 2 that still do not work, but I think that is because the sources are incomplete.

[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 21:16, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TPoole}} Looking really good, and this is a complicated one. A couple of things: no spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}; I removed the spaces before {{tl|sfn}}, but you might want to check them; there are some typos, like missing spaces before some parentheses; no footnotes should appear in the notes section: use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead. And all the red errors at the bottom need to be cleared up. Great work so far! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:00, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Red Error-Gone ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}I have deleted all the sfn's and the red error is gone. I don't know why I didn't think about this days ago.

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe|Gladstein-Monroe]]

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 23:07, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} getting closer. A few things: you should use <code>|author-mask=1</code> for repeated author names in your works cited; all parenthetical citations need to be replaced with footnotes using {{tl|sfn}}; must punctuation in your sources need to be removed as the templates do that for you; and you need to use {{tl|harvtxt}} for citations in your endnotes. Also, letters and films have their own templates. I did a couple of these for you as examples. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:14, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris|"Remembering Norris"]] by Margo Howard.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:20, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Norman Mailer: From Orgone Accumulator to Cancer Protection for Schizophrenics ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_From_Orgone_Accumulator_to_Cancer_Protection_for_Schizophrenics

I was unable to find the correct format for the first works cited entry under Mailer. It is a reprint of a magazine article. Thank you. [[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 16:28, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} you are a master remediator! Thank you for going above and beyond. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:44, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

==Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Trust & Sparring with Norman==
Dr. Lucas, these were some of the smaller ones, so I went ahead and knocked them out. They are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Sparring with Norman|Sparring with Norman]], [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Trust|Trust]], and [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls|Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 10:27, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Kamyers}} all excellent—above and beyond! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing'' ==

Hi everyone,
I am currently helping with the article, [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Death,_Art,_and_the_Disturbing:_Hemingway_and_Mailer_and_the_Art_of_Writing Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing]. It still has a good bit to go, if anyone wants to help out.
—[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 5:17 PM, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} thanks! I added the author info. I'm not sure many will see your request; you might want to post it on the forum. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:56, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Thank you for adding the author information and I have posted the request in the forum. Thank you! —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:CVinson|talk]]) 6:53 PM, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Mimi and Mercer ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have corrected the Mimi Gladstein [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Piling On: Norman Mailer’s Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]] and removed all the red errors. I also have finishe the Erin Mercer article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Automatons and the Atomic Abyss: The Naked and the Dead]], except the ''The Naked and the Dead'' in the display title. An error occured.
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 19:26, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work. There should be no footnotes in the endnotes, please. Since this is the only thing to correct, I have removed the banner, but please let me know when you made that final correction. Thanks! (I will respond about your second article shortly.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:59, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} your second article looks good. Could you use the [[w:Template:Cite interview|Template:Cite interview]] for interviews. I did one for you. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:33, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas! I've completed the remediation of [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Through_the_Lens_of_the_Beatniks:_Norman_Mailer_and_Modern_American_Man’s_Quest_for_Self-Realization#CITEREFNaked1992|Through the Lens of the Beatniks]]. I wasn't able to get the letter citations exactly how I thought they should be. If there's anything I'm missing, please let me know! Thanks! [[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 10:09, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} got it! It looks great. I made some format changes, but you did a great job! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 15:58, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I have made the final edit to Mimi and removed the footnotes from the endnotes. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]] [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 15:50, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you removed all the citations. Only '''footnotes''' need to be removed, but citations need to stay. I did the first note for you (now erased, but you can see it in the history) so you could see how it was done. You can also see [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer|this one]]. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:52, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe the book review, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/All_You_Need_is_Glove|All You Need is Glove]] is done and ready for review! [[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} awesome work! Banner removed, and many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:08, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I changed the citations in the article to interview and I tried a few things to get rid of the Harv and Sfn no-target with little luck. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:04, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} this was because your interviews had no dates. Most are from Lennon's book, published in 1988. I added the dates to the citations, but the sfn footnotes need to be fixed to correspond with those. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 16 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} OK, between your fixes and my little tweaks, this one is finished! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:50, 17 April 2025 (EDT)

== Erros fixed ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have fixed all citation errors in both articles and added the harvtxt. Atomic Abyss still has the Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls error.
[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} see above. These still need fixing. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} this one looks great! Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 08:23, 15 April 2025 (EDT)

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

Thanks to some classmates helping with the finishing touches, my second article should be ready. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Advertisements_for_Others:_The_Blurbs_of_Norman_Mailer|Advertisements for Others.]]
--[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 19:24, 17 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T21:17:39Z

NrmMGA5108:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{byline|last=Mitchell |first=Matthew S Hinton |abstract=With ''Advertisements for Myself'', Norman Mailer established an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.. }}

WITH ''ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF'', NORMAN MAILER ESTABLISHED an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.
Although the 1990s were the peak years for his blurb-writing (he wrote thirty-six of them), Mailer was already punching up endorsements in the first full-year of his literary career. Fast on the heels of ''The Naked and the Dead'', he found fascination with a book authored by a thirty-eight-year-old Japanese businessman: a nightclub owner who was “Hawaiian-born, U.S.- educated, and a veteran of the Japanese army” named Hanama Tasaki.{{sfn|"Made in Japan"|1952}} Tasaki made his debut with ''Long the Imperial Way''—a war novel—and Mailer generously wrote the following one hundred and seventy two words:
<blockquote> I hope ''Long the Imperial Way'' finds a large audience, and to Americans this picture of Japanese life should prove fascinating. Even more important, the experience of military life seen through a Japanese filter is the possible way to grasp the swindle of modern war: the patriotism, the battle waged in the name of peace, the exploitation of soldiers by their officers—the sad song {{pg|453|454}} is here with all its verses. For undoubtedly the Japanese were more miserable, more subjected, more oppressed than soldiers of any other nation, and the brutalities and excesses they committed became comprehensible here to the Western mind. Or at least it is to be hoped that they do become comprehensible or we shall be in a pretty pass when not only the Russians but the Americans as well begin to commit the extra-curricular butcheries of war, and American soldiers and Russian soldiers will strike out in blind frustration and in desperation, swindled even in the moment of their death by the slogans which have already betrayed them.</blockquote>

The paragraph he wrote in support of James Jones’s ''From Here to Eternity'', one of his earliest blurbs, presages his relationship with the fellow war novelist—one of great camaraderie and, later, some disagreement. Mailer had received the work through Scribner’s editor, Burroughs Mitchell. Sick in bed in his Vermont home during the fall of 1950, with the galleys of ''Eternity'' to keep him company, Mailer had this to offer:

<blockquote> It’s a big fist of a book with powerful virtues and serious faults, but if the very good is mixed with the sometimes bad, those qual- ities are inseparable from the author. Jones writes with a wry compassionate anger which is individual and borrows from no writer I know. I think his book is one of the best of the ‘war novels’, and in certain facets perhaps the best.</blockquote>
In a letter to Jones in 1955, Mailer properly framed his contribution, saying, “I remember when I read ''Eternity.'' I was sick with the grippe at the time and I just got sicker. Because deep inside me I knew that no matter how I didn’t want to like it, and how I leaped with pleasure at its faults, it was still just too fucking good . . .” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999}}
Mailer suffered, surely, but also felt that Jones was “talking” to him, as good writers did through their books, especially a “major work” like ''Eternity.'' Later, after the deterioration of their friendship, Jones and Mailer would meet for the last time in Elaine’s, a bar in the Upper East Side. An uninformed Mailer suggested that the two “fight it out,” to which Jones replied, “I’m sick, I’ve got a bum heart” {{sfn|Jones|1951}} {{pg|454|455}}
Norman felt bad about having made this challenge, and relayed the story to Kaylie Jones when the two met at a cocktail party at Jean Stein’s in the late 1980s. Eager to heal old wounds, he offered his friendship to the then twenty-something author. Gloria Jones, rigid and quiet next her daughter through- out the exchange, finally spoke. “You can make it up to her right now,” she said, “give her a quote for her new book about Russia.” Mailer seemed to easily acquiesce, and Gloria added, “If you give her a quote for her novel . . . I swear, Norman, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give you a blow job.” They all laughed, and Norman wrote the blurb for ''Quite the Other Way'',{{sfn|Jones|1990}} celebrating Kaylie’s “great honesty about a tricky and charged subject . . . a portrait of life in Moscow . . .”

The Joneses were not the only major authors to receive blurbs from Mailer. Mailer promoted ''The Naked Lunch'' {{sfn|Burroughs|1962}} as “a book of great beauty, great difficulty, and maniacally exquisite insight,” referring to Burroughs as “the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Mailer would go on public record in a Boston obscenity trial with his thoughts, along with Allen Ginsberg, to appeal the banning of the book. {{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=216}}

Not long after meeting James Baldwin in Paris in 1956—Jean Malaquais introduced the two at his apartment—Mailer “kindly” provided a blurb for the just-finished ''Giovanni’s Room''. {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=144}}{{sfn|Baldwin|1965}} There to decompress after writing for ''The Village Voice'', the patriarch of hipsterdom was quitting Benzedrine and Seconal, and composed a simple review of Baldwin’s work, saying he “has become one of the few writers of our time . . . [he has written] a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction.”

Novelist and screenwriter Don Carpenter has had his share of Mailer praise as well, initially receiving a blurb for his first work in 1966, ''Hard Rain Falling'', {{sfn|Carpenter|1966}} which read, “Don Carpenter has written a remarkably cool, knowledgeable, sly, subtle, wry, painful novel about some intelligent and violent men and their little trip through life, prison, and the pains of reformation . . . the best novel I’ve ever read about contemporary show biz.”

Over twenty years later, Norman was doing his “church work” as president of the PEN American Center{{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=149}} and coping with the death of his mother, Fanny Mailer, but perhaps found solace in Carpenter’s ''The Class of ’49 ''. {{sfn|Carpenter|1985}} In an eloquent endorsement, he wrote: “I never knew what they meant when they said so-and-so writes like an angel, but now I do. Don Carpenter
{{pg|455|456}}
gives us a superb prose, light, fast as the speed of reading, quick in its turns, luminous, tender, humorous, sad, full of wise woe and comic optimism.”

As for Larry L. King, he would comment on ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' in a 1981 letter, saying he “love[ed] the penetration in that one.” Five years later, he reserved his less suggestive admiration for King’s ''None But a Blockhead'': “King’s strengths are his wit and his integrity . . . He rings an American bell. His writing is, I dare say, intoxicating.” {{sfn|King|1986}}

As with many novelists, Norman understood the infinite value of poets and their craft. He “accept[ed] the hazard of mentioning [his] own poetry” in a blurb for Florida poet Ed Skellings, {{sfn|Skellings|1976}} and included the refrain: “I want my poems / to be like bones / and shine silver in the sun.” Poet Norman Ros- ten, who referred to Mailer as “Norm I” (Rosten himself was “Norm II”), would also receive acclaim from his longtime friend. ''Over and Out'', {{sfn|Rosten|1972}} however, was not a poetry collection, but a “remarkable novel filled with poetic skills and startling tender sorrows which are blown away with the lightest diffusion of wit . . . the prevailing mood while reading it is pleasure, then more pleasure.” Rosten initiated Mailer’s literary life, helping him to carry the manuscript for ''The Naked and Dead'' on the subway to meet Ted Amussen. Once, he had even attempted to arrange a meeting between Norm I and Marilyn Monroe, who frequented the kitchen of his Connecticut home in the late 1950s. Mailer, who lived within a mere five miles, would tease Ros- ten about this, often accusing him of “favoring [Arthur] Miller” {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=253}} During the 1980s, both “Norms” would regularly eat lunch together in New York—it seems that they always stayed in touch.

But Mailer’s interests were never solely literary. Like any sane person, one of Norman’s favorite pastimes was sex. Yet with one book, he proudly announced a bit of ignorance. One Fall evening in 1956, Mailer had tried to prompt a fight between his then-wife Adele and Leslie Aldridge Westoff (then married to John Aldridge) at a party in their Connecticut farmhouse. Over forty years later, Leslie co-authored ''Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You''{{sfn|Westoff|1999}} and contacted him for a blurb, saying “[Y]ou, Norman, have always been known for your witty, provocative, brilliant, and sexy comments
. . . so if you could just say one sentence . . . I will be forever grateful . . .” {{sfn|Greenstein|2000}} She knew how to stroke his ego, and Mailer’s response matched her praise in kind: “Working on my own stuff, I haven’t had a moment to look into ''Passionate Sex'', but how can others fail to buy it? If the author delivers one-tenth of what is promised in the title, the book will be the bargain of the{{pg|456|457}} year.” He allowed no editing of this blurb—no cuts whatsoever—and amended in an interview, “Why assume that endorsements are holy? I thought it was time to have a little fun with the solemnity of sexual promise. And indeed I did remain true to the endangered principle that information in an information age must strive to be as accurate as possible”. {{sfn|Greenstein|2000|p=40}} Whether he knew it or not, Norman’s comment would be telling of the very origin of the blurb itself, which first came to us on the cover of humorist Gelett Burgess’s ''Are You a Bromide?'' To promote his 1906 publication, Burgess had included the photo of a buxom woman with the fictional name of “Belinda Blurb,” followed by a brief, and nonsensical, text. This satirical look at self-praise caught on, and the word soon found a more serious home amongst promoters and advertisers. {{sfn|Corey|1997|p=35-6}} With his remarks, Norman had once again cut publicity down to its original chaff.

Mailer’s attention to sex was matched only by his early interest in fighting and its various styles. During the winter of 1956-57, Mailer was visited in his Connecticut home by Lyle Stuart, the publisher who would encourage him to begin writing about race in America, sending his statements to Faulkner and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Stuart was aware of Mailer’s interest in combat, and during this trip encouraged him to take jiu-jitsu classes in New York. Norman took to it immediately, and when he discovered that Stu- art was publishing a book by his own jiu-jitsu professor, he matched the fifteen-hundred-dollar advance, and profited from the investment by well over twenty-two thousand dollars.{{sfn|Mills|1982|p=184}} He even wrote a blurb, touting Kiyose Nakae’s 1958 ''Jiu-Jitsu Complete''{{sfn|Nakae|1958}} as “coherent and practical in its every detail.”

An affinity for boxing took Mailer from spectator to promoter to inside the ring. In the same above letter to King, he quipped, “I have to laugh when I think of all the dedication and abstention I’ve put into a sport where on my greatest days I rise within sight of being a mediocre amateur-gentlemen- boxer.” Norman would extol Larry Fink’s 1997 collection of boxing photo- graphs, proclaiming them to be “very good at capturing the dignity, the dread, the sense of doom and the desire to bring doom upon others that is the subtext of every fight . . . and every boxing gym.” He took to early spar- ring with Adele Morales’ father, Al, who always had a place to practice or a bag to swing at, and had associated with the likes of Roger Donoghue, Mo- hammed Ali, and very closely with light-heavyweight champ Jose Torres, whom Mailer financed for the 1965 title. Both men took great pains with {{pg|457|458}} each other as they traded punches and pages in the summer of 1972, Torres— who rented a nearby house in Jamaica, Vermont—was teaching Mailer the ropes, Mailer teaching Torres the pen. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=189}} By the end of it, Tor- res completed his book on Ali, the well-known ''Sting Like a Bee''. {{sfn|Torres|1971}} Mailer’s blurb would prove a quick jab of friendship: “Fantastic . . . Goddamit.”

Just as he was no stranger to taking a swing, Mailer would have a deep interest in the concepts of God, the devil, and the everlasting fight between the two—a fight taking place in the ring of one’s very soul. Myron Kaufmann, a Jewish classmate from Harvard, was present when Bea Silverman (Mailer’s girlfriend at the time) turned to the other women eating dinner at Dunster House and asked “Do you girls fuck?” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=34}} For Kaufmann, author of the 1957 bestseller ''Remember Me to God'', {{sfn|Kaufmann|1957}} Norman would state his “extraordinary honesty” in saying that the book would “cause a noticeable shift in the consciousness of the American Jew and the American Protestant” and would credit it for awakening him to hints of anti-Semitism at Harvard, though he “never felt ghettoized” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=24}}.

Sandra Harmon, who booked Mailer for his infamous appearance with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show, received his nod of approval for her novel, ''A Girl Like Me''. {{sfn|Harmon|1975}} The blurb, written soon after his return from Africa in 1975, took up the entire back cover. “We are entering a literature where all the lives which used to be silent now speak,” the comments began,
<blockquote> Now, in its way, ''A Girl Like Me'' is the most startling manifestation of this phenomenon. For no matter who else would write a book, how could we expect a novel as unendurably honest as this to come from that female Jewish world which is triangulated be- tween Brooklyn, Miami and Los Angeles, that secretive, plotting, self-calculating and wholly materialistic world, especially when its heroine is beautiful, sexually centered, victim and exploiter, as calculating and ambitious as the rest, and yet divinely, incomprehensibly honest. . . . </blockquote>

It seems appropriate that Harmon’s book made it to Mailer’s reading pile. It was around this time that he met Norris Church at a party thrown by long- time friends, Francis and Ecey Gwaltney. Opposite those “lives which used to be silent,” he filled his life, and his reading hours, with people of great fame. It is no secret that Norman was obsessed by the iconic Marilyn Monroe
{{pg|458|459}} (evidenced by his much disputed biography, Marilyn). The same year his name appeared on Harmon’s novel, it appeared on Robert Slatzer’s ''The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe'', hailing it as good enough to re-open the investigation on the starlet’s suspicious death:
<blockquote> [I]n fact I would say on the basis of hard evidence he has col- lected it would now be more difficult to prove she took her own life than that she was killed. It is already boring to say, ‘in light of Watergate . . .’ but in the light of Watergate, Dallas, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Malcolm X and Chappaquidick, I do not know how anyone could read the end of this book and think that a Coroner’s Inquest on the death of Marilyn Monroe can or should be avoided. The trouble is that public opinion must first call for it. . . . </blockquote>

In an interesting sidenote, biographer Carl Rollyson twice requested Mailer’s endorsement for his own book on Monroe: “He replied quite courteously, saying he hoped he would have time to read it—although he had stacks of books from friends who hoped he would write blurbs for them”. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=371}}

Another iconic starlet, socialite, actress, and model—Edie Sedgwick— once auditioned for Mailer’s stage adaptation of ''The Deer Park'', though he thought she “wasn’t very good . . . she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.” This quotation comes to us from the ''Edie: An American Biography'', {{sfn|Stein|1982}} by Jean Stein and longtime friend George Plimpton, which bore a blurb by Mailer: “[she] was the spirit of the Sixties . . . While it is not a novel (although it reads like one) I still will say: ''This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for''.” In 1985, he would comment: “''Savage Grace'' has to be the best oral history to come out since Edie.” {{sfn|Robins|1985}} Norman Mailer managed not only to get his name in Edie’s biography, but also on its cover, as well as mention it on an- other biography altogether—about ''Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous Family'', the doomed Baekelands.

One cannot mention Mailer’s association with fame and doom without also invoking the Kennedy name. In the late 1980s, he would mirror his comments on Marilyn Monroe with Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, {{sfn|Garrison|1988}} detailing the JFK shooting as “a conspiracy.” Of Summers’ Conspiracy: The {{pg|459|460}} ''Definitive Book on the JFK'' Assassination he would say, “I began it again as soon as I finished.” However, none of these was as lauded as ''Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption''. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} At 82, Mailer was still going strong—the University of Texas had just purchased his archive for $2.5 million—and he was more than willing to contribute this blurb for Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s book:
<blockquote> Books about famous American families usually land with a pious splat, or look to excavate a mud hole, but this one is a beauty. The Kennedys have had more achievements and more God-size disasters than most of us can ever know, but not one of the Kennedys has been a good writer. That verdict can now be al- tered . . . given as far as he chooses to go, he certainly tells it like it is. Three cheers. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} </blockquote>
Such a prominent and sprawling family name brings to mind Mailer’s own blood, specifically Cy Rembar, whose work, ''The End of Obscenity,'' {{sfn|Rembar|1968}} came only a few years after Norman’s testimony in favor of ''The Naked Lunch.'' Rembar’s work was supported by his cousin as “a quiet and essentially modest account of a legal revolution,” and would be bookended in 1996 by Mailer’s approval of Peter Alson’s ''Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie'' as
<blockquote> [T]ough, vulnerable, poignant . . . Alson’s achievement is to limn the spiritual pain of a well-educated Yuppie who is not on his uppers. This he does as no one has before. So, his confessional becomes one of those few books which captures a generation. Since I am Peter Alson’s uncle, I will probably be accused of nepotism, but to hell with that—I would stand by the first para- graph if he were your nephew. Literature is thicker than blood.{{sfn|Alson|1996}} </blockquote>
In his contributions to covers, Mailer even took the time to contemplate the minutiae of modern life. There is joyous disgust in his blurb for Fenichell’s ''Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century'', {{sfn|Fenichell|1999|}} “At last! For anyone who hates plastics and loves good writing, this is the book to satisfy your anger, your passion, and your instinctive judgment, and all at once.” And one cannot ignore ''Vittorio’s Dog Book'', {{sfn|Fiorucci|2002}} a collection of drawings that inspired the novelist to admit, “Dogs have souls. The only question, in my mind, is {{pg|460|461}} whether theirs are more noble than ours. And I say this despite having seen a great deal of execrable behavior in the canine species.”

Few subjects have escaped Norman Mailer’s interest, and even fewer observations his keen eye. The collection of his blurbs is a collection of reflective vignettes, and serves as a testament to his relationship with the spooky art, his munificence toward fellow conjurers, and his role as a quick-change artist; a Renaissance man; a broker of the literary marketplace. When considering the endorsement of fellow authors, it is perhaps best to heed Mailer’s advice, included in a 1974 letter to Richard Goodwin for his work ''The 'American Condition'':

<blockquote> If your publishers wish to cut [the blurb], that’s all right with me, but I’d like them to show the rare courtesy of indicating how and where they’re going to make the cuts . . . it creates good will and the opposite causes a quiet rancor to build in people who begin as your champion . . . don’t [take] the blurb and pull out of it ‘a great book.’ {{sfn|Goodwin|1974}} </blockquote>

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite book |last=Alson |first=Peter |date=1996 |title= Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie |url= |location=New York |publisher=Crown Publishers, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Baldwin |first=James |date= 1965|title= Giovanni’s Room |url= |location= New York |publisher= |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Burroughs |first=William |date= 1962|title= Naked Lunch |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press|pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date=1985 |title= The Class of ’’49: A Novel and Two Short Stories |url= |location= New York |publisher=North Point Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date= 1966|title= Hard Rain Falling |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Corey |first=Dale |date=1997 |title=Inventing English: The Imaginative Origins of Everyday Expressions. |url= |location= New York |publisher=Berkley Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fenichell |first=Stephen |date=1999 |title=Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper business |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fiorucci |first=Vittorio |date=2002 |title=Vittorio’s Dog Book |url= |location= |publisher=Scarlet Claw Publishing, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Garrison |first=Jim |date=1988 |title=On the Trail of the Assassins |url= |location=New York |publisher=Sheridan Square Pub |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Richard |date=1974 |title=The American Condition |url= |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= Greenstein |first= Jennifer |date=April 2000 |title= Advertisement for Himself |url= |magazine= Brill’s Content |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Harmon |first=Sandra |date=1975 |title=A Girl Like Me |url= |location=New York |publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |date=1951 |title=From Here to Eternity |url= |location=New York |publisher= Charles Scribner’s Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=2009 |title=Lies My Mother Never Told Me |url= |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=1990 |title=Quite the OtherWay |url= |location=New York |publisher=Fawcett |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite interview |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |subject-link= |date=11 June 2009 |title=Telephone Interview |url= |work= |interviewer-last= |interviewer-first= |interviewer-link= |location= |publisher= |access-date=}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Myron |date=1957 |title=Remember Me to God |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=J. P. Lippincott |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Larry |date=1986 |title=None But a Blockhead |url= |location=New York |publisher=Viking Adult |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lawford |first=Christopher Kennedy |date=2005 |title=Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J.Michael. |date=2000 |title=Norman Mailer: Works and Days |url= |location=Shavertown, PA |publisher=Sligo Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= |first= |date=4 August 1952 |title=Made in Japan |url= |magazine=Time Magazine |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|"Made in Japan"|1952 }}}}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title=Mailer: His Life and Times |url= |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mills |first=Hiliary |date=1982 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nakae |first=Kiyose |date=1958 |title=Jiu-Jitsu Complete |url= |location=New York |publisher=Wehman Bros |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= |first= |title=Norman Mailer |url= |journal=1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium |volume= |issue= |date=1999 |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid }}}}
* {{cite document |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=4 March 1974 |title=Letter to Richard Goodwin |location= |publisher= |page=}}
* {{cite document |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=11 May 1981 |title=Letter to Larry L. King |location= |publisher=The Daily Beast |page=}}
* {{cite book |last=Rembar |first=Charles |date=1968 |title=The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Reuter |first=Madalynne |date=8 February 1985 |title=1,000 Writers toMeet in New York at PEN International Congress |url= |magazine=Publisher’s Weekly |pages=23-24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Robins |first=Natalie |last=Aronson |first=Steven |date=1985 |title=Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rosten |first=Norman |date=1972 |title=Over and Out |url= |location=New York |publisher=George Braziller |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Skellings |first=Edmund |date=1976 |title=Heart Attacks |url= |location=Gainesville |publisher=UP of Florida |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Slatzer |first=Robert F. |date=1975 |title=The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=New York |publisher=Pinnacle |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Stein |first=Jean |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1982 |title=Edie: An American Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Summers |first=Anthony |date=1989 |title=Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the J.F.K. Assassination |url= |location=St. Paul |publisher=Paragon House Publishing |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Tasaki |first=Hanama |date=1950 |title=Long the Imperial Way |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Torres |first=Jose |date=1971 |title=Sting Like a Bee: The Mohammad Ali Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Curtis Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Westoff |first=Leslie Aldridge |last=Stein |first=Daniel S. |date=1999 |title=Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You |url= |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |pages= |ref=harv }}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T21:16:20Z

NrmMGA5108:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{byline|last=Mitchell |first=Matthew S Hinton |abstract=With ''Advertisements for Myself'', Norman Mailer established an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.. }}

WITH ''ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF'', NORMAN MAILER ESTABLISHED an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.
Although the 1990s were the peak years for his blurb-writing (he wrote thirty-six of them), Mailer was already punching up endorsements in the first full-year of his literary career. Fast on the heels of ''The Naked and the Dead'', he found fascination with a book authored by a thirty-eight-year-old Japanese businessman: a nightclub owner who was “Hawaiian-born, U.S.- educated, and a veteran of the Japanese army” named Hanama Tasaki.{{sfn|"Made in Japan"|1952}} Tasaki made his debut with ''Long the Imperial Way''—a war novel—and Mailer generously wrote the following one hundred and seventy two words:
<blockquote> I hope ''Long the Imperial Way'' finds a large audience, and to Americans this picture of Japanese life should prove fascinating. Even more important, the experience of military life seen through a Japanese filter is the possible way to grasp the swindle of modern war: the patriotism, the battle waged in the name of peace, the exploitation of soldiers by their officers—the sad song {{pg|453|454}} is here with all its verses. For undoubtedly the Japanese were more miserable, more subjected, more oppressed than soldiers of any other nation, and the brutalities and excesses they committed became comprehensible here to the Western mind. Or at least it is to be hoped that they do become comprehensible or we shall be in a pretty pass when not only the Russians but the Americans as well begin to commit the extra-curricular butcheries of war, and American soldiers and Russian soldiers will strike out in blind frustration and in desperation, swindled even in the moment of their death by the slogans which have already betrayed them.</blockquote>

The paragraph he wrote in support of James Jones’s ''From Here to Eternity'', one of his earliest blurbs, presages his relationship with the fellow war novelist—one of great camaraderie and, later, some disagreement. Mailer had received the work through Scribner’s editor, Burroughs Mitchell. Sick in bed in his Vermont home during the fall of 1950, with the galleys of ''Eternity'' to keep him company, Mailer had this to offer:

<blockquote> It’s a big fist of a book with powerful virtues and serious faults, but if the very good is mixed with the sometimes bad, those qual- ities are inseparable from the author. Jones writes with a wry compassionate anger which is individual and borrows from no writer I know. I think his book is one of the best of the ‘war novels’, and in certain facets perhaps the best.</blockquote>
In a letter to Jones in 1955, Mailer properly framed his contribution, saying, “I remember when I read ''Eternity.'' I was sick with the grippe at the time and I just got sicker. Because deep inside me I knew that no matter how I didn’t want to like it, and how I leaped with pleasure at its faults, it was still just too fucking good . . .” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999}}
Mailer suffered, surely, but also felt that Jones was “talking” to him, as good writers did through their books, especially a “major work” like ''Eternity.'' Later, after the deterioration of their friendship, Jones and Mailer would meet for the last time in Elaine’s, a bar in the Upper East Side. An uninformed Mailer suggested that the two “fight it out,” to which Jones replied, “I’m sick, I’ve got a bum heart” {{sfn|Jones|1951}} {{pg|454|455}}
Norman felt bad about having made this challenge, and relayed the story to Kaylie Jones when the two met at a cocktail party at Jean Stein’s in the late 1980s. Eager to heal old wounds, he offered his friendship to the then twenty-something author. Gloria Jones, rigid and quiet next her daughter through- out the exchange, finally spoke. “You can make it up to her right now,” she said, “give her a quote for her new book about Russia.” Mailer seemed to easily acquiesce, and Gloria added, “If you give her a quote for her novel . . . I swear, Norman, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give you a blow job.” They all laughed, and Norman wrote the blurb for ''Quite the Other Way'',{{sfn|Jones|1990}} celebrating Kaylie’s “great honesty about a tricky and charged subject . . . a portrait of life in Moscow . . .”

The Joneses were not the only major authors to receive blurbs from Mailer. Mailer promoted ''The Naked Lunch'' {{sfn|Burroughs|1962}} as “a book of great beauty, great difficulty, and maniacally exquisite insight,” referring to Burroughs as “the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Mailer would go on public record in a Boston obscenity trial with his thoughts, along with Allen Ginsberg, to appeal the banning of the book. {{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=216}}

Not long after meeting James Baldwin in Paris in 1956—Jean Malaquais introduced the two at his apartment—Mailer “kindly” provided a blurb for the just-finished ''Giovanni’s Room''. {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=144}}{{sfn|Baldwin|1965}} There to decompress after writing for ''The Village Voice'', the patriarch of hipsterdom was quitting Benzedrine and Seconal, and composed a simple review of Baldwin’s work, saying he “has become one of the few writers of our time . . . [he has written] a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction.”

Novelist and screenwriter Don Carpenter has had his share of Mailer praise as well, initially receiving a blurb for his first work in 1966, ''Hard Rain Falling'', {{sfn|Carpenter|1966}} which read, “Don Carpenter has written a remarkably cool, knowledgeable, sly, subtle, wry, painful novel about some intelligent and violent men and their little trip through life, prison, and the pains of reformation . . . the best novel I’ve ever read about contemporary show biz.”

Over twenty years later, Norman was doing his “church work” as president of the PEN American Center{{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=149}} and coping with the death of his mother, Fanny Mailer, but perhaps found solace in Carpenter’s ''The Class of ’49 ''. {{sfn|Carpenter|1985}} In an eloquent endorsement, he wrote: “I never knew what they meant when they said so-and-so writes like an angel, but now I do. Don Carpenter
{{pg|455|456}}
gives us a superb prose, light, fast as the speed of reading, quick in its turns, luminous, tender, humorous, sad, full of wise woe and comic optimism.”

As for Larry L. King, he would comment on ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' in a 1981 letter, saying he “love[ed] the penetration in that one.” Five years later, he reserved his less suggestive admiration for King’s ''None But a Blockhead'': “King’s strengths are his wit and his integrity . . . He rings an American bell. His writing is, I dare say, intoxicating.” {{sfn|King|1986}}

As with many novelists, Norman understood the infinite value of poets and their craft. He “accept[ed] the hazard of mentioning [his] own poetry” in a blurb for Florida poet Ed Skellings, {{sfn|Skellings|1976}} and included the refrain: “I want my poems / to be like bones / and shine silver in the sun.” Poet Norman Ros- ten, who referred to Mailer as “Norm I” (Rosten himself was “Norm II”), would also receive acclaim from his longtime friend. ''Over and Out'', {{sfn|Rosten|1972}} however, was not a poetry collection, but a “remarkable novel filled with poetic skills and startling tender sorrows which are blown away with the lightest diffusion of wit . . . the prevailing mood while reading it is pleasure, then more pleasure.” Rosten initiated Mailer’s literary life, helping him to carry the manuscript for ''The Naked and Dead'' on the subway to meet Ted Amussen. Once, he had even attempted to arrange a meeting between Norm I and Marilyn Monroe, who frequented the kitchen of his Connecticut home in the late 1950s. Mailer, who lived within a mere five miles, would tease Ros- ten about this, often accusing him of “favoring [Arthur] Miller” {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=253}} During the 1980s, both “Norms” would regularly eat lunch together in New York—it seems that they always stayed in touch.

But Mailer’s interests were never solely literary. Like any sane person, one of Norman’s favorite pastimes was sex. Yet with one book, he proudly announced a bit of ignorance. One Fall evening in 1956, Mailer had tried to prompt a fight between his then-wife Adele and Leslie Aldridge Westoff (then married to John Aldridge) at a party in their Connecticut farmhouse. Over forty years later, Leslie co-authored ''Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You''{{sfn|Westoff|1999}} and contacted him for a blurb, saying “[Y]ou, Norman, have always been known for your witty, provocative, brilliant, and sexy comments
. . . so if you could just say one sentence . . . I will be forever grateful . . .” {{sfn|Greenstein|2000}} She knew how to stroke his ego, and Mailer’s response matched her praise in kind: “Working on my own stuff, I haven’t had a moment to look into ''Passionate Sex'', but how can others fail to buy it? If the author delivers one-tenth of what is promised in the title, the book will be the bargain of the{{pg|456|457}} year.” He allowed no editing of this blurb—no cuts whatsoever—and amended in an interview, “Why assume that endorsements are holy? I thought it was time to have a little fun with the solemnity of sexual promise. And indeed I did remain true to the endangered principle that information in an information age must strive to be as accurate as possible”. {{sfn|Greenstein|2000|p=40}} Whether he knew it or not, Norman’s comment would be telling of the very origin of the blurb itself, which first came to us on the cover of humorist Gelett Burgess’s ''Are You a Bromide?'' To promote his  publication, Burgess had included the photo of a buxom woman with the fictional name of “Belinda Blurb,” followed by a brief, and nonsensical, text. This satirical look at self-praise caught on, and the word soon found a more serious home amongst promoters and advertisers. {{sfn|Corey|1997|p=35-6}} With his remarks, Norman had once again cut publicity down to its original chaff.

Mailer’s attention to sex was matched only by his early interest in fighting and its various styles. During the winter of 1956-57, Mailer was visited in his Connecticut home by Lyle Stuart, the publisher who would encourage him to begin writing about race in America, sending his statements to Faulkner and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Stuart was aware of Mailer’s interest in combat, and during this trip encouraged him to take jiu-jitsu classes in New York. Norman took to it immediately, and when he discovered that Stu- art was publishing a book by his own jiu-jitsu professor, he matched the fifteen-hundred-dollar advance, and profited from the investment by well over twenty-two thousand dollars.{{sfn|Mills|1982|p=184}} He even wrote a blurb, touting Kiyose Nakae’s 1958 ''Jiu-Jitsu Complete''{{sfn|Nakae|1958}} as “coherent and practical in its every detail.”

An affinity for boxing took Mailer from spectator to promoter to inside the ring. In the same above letter to King, he quipped, “I have to laugh when I think of all the dedication and abstention I’ve put into a sport where on my greatest days I rise within sight of being a mediocre amateur-gentlemen- boxer.” Norman would extol Larry Fink’s 1997 collection of boxing photo- graphs, proclaiming them to be “very good at capturing the dignity, the dread, the sense of doom and the desire to bring doom upon others that is the subtext of every fight . . . and every boxing gym.” He took to early spar- ring with Adele Morales’ father, Al, who always had a place to practice or a bag to swing at, and had associated with the likes of Roger Donoghue, Mo- hammed Ali, and very closely with light-heavyweight champ Jose Torres, whom Mailer financed for the 1965 title. Both men took great pains with {{pg|457|458}} each other as they traded punches and pages in the summer of 1972, Torres— who rented a nearby house in Jamaica, Vermont—was teaching Mailer the ropes, Mailer teaching Torres the pen. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=189}} By the end of it, Tor- res completed his book on Ali, the well-known ''Sting Like a Bee''. {{sfn|Torres|1971}} Mailer’s blurb would prove a quick jab of friendship: “Fantastic . . . Goddamit.”

Just as he was no stranger to taking a swing, Mailer would have a deep interest in the concepts of God, the devil, and the everlasting fight between the two—a fight taking place in the ring of one’s very soul. Myron Kaufmann, a Jewish classmate from Harvard, was present when Bea Silverman (Mailer’s girlfriend at the time) turned to the other women eating dinner at Dunster House and asked “Do you girls fuck?” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=34}} For Kaufmann, author of the 1957 bestseller ''Remember Me to God'', {{sfn|Kaufmann|1957}} Norman would state his “extraordinary honesty” in saying that the book would “cause a noticeable shift in the consciousness of the American Jew and the American Protestant” and would credit it for awakening him to hints of anti-Semitism at Harvard, though he “never felt ghettoized” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=24}}.

Sandra Harmon, who booked Mailer for his infamous appearance with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show, received his nod of approval for her novel, ''A Girl Like Me''. {{sfn|Harmon|1975}} The blurb, written soon after his return from Africa in 1975, took up the entire back cover. “We are entering a literature where all the lives which used to be silent now speak,” the comments began,
<blockquote> Now, in its way, ''A Girl Like Me'' is the most startling manifestation of this phenomenon. For no matter who else would write a book, how could we expect a novel as unendurably honest as this to come from that female Jewish world which is triangulated be- tween Brooklyn, Miami and Los Angeles, that secretive, plotting, self-calculating and wholly materialistic world, especially when its heroine is beautiful, sexually centered, victim and exploiter, as calculating and ambitious as the rest, and yet divinely, incomprehensibly honest. . . . </blockquote>

It seems appropriate that Harmon’s book made it to Mailer’s reading pile. It was around this time that he met Norris Church at a party thrown by long- time friends, Francis and Ecey Gwaltney. Opposite those “lives which used to be silent,” he filled his life, and his reading hours, with people of great fame. It is no secret that Norman was obsessed by the iconic Marilyn Monroe
{{pg|458|459}} (evidenced by his much disputed biography, Marilyn). The same year his name appeared on Harmon’s novel, it appeared on Robert Slatzer’s ''The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe'', hailing it as good enough to re-open the investigation on the starlet’s suspicious death:
<blockquote> [I]n fact I would say on the basis of hard evidence he has col- lected it would now be more difficult to prove she took her own life than that she was killed. It is already boring to say, ‘in light of Watergate . . .’ but in the light of Watergate, Dallas, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Malcolm X and Chappaquidick, I do not know how anyone could read the end of this book and think that a Coroner’s Inquest on the death of Marilyn Monroe can or should be avoided. The trouble is that public opinion must first call for it. . . . </blockquote>

In an interesting sidenote, biographer Carl Rollyson twice requested Mailer’s endorsement for his own book on Monroe: “He replied quite courteously, saying he hoped he would have time to read it—although he had stacks of books from friends who hoped he would write blurbs for them”. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=371}}

Another iconic starlet, socialite, actress, and model—Edie Sedgwick— once auditioned for Mailer’s stage adaptation of ''The Deer Park'', though he thought she “wasn’t very good . . . she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.” This quotation comes to us from the ''Edie: An American Biography'', {{sfn|Stein|1982}} by Jean Stein and longtime friend George Plimpton, which bore a blurb by Mailer: “[she] was the spirit of the Sixties . . . While it is not a novel (although it reads like one) I still will say: ''This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for''.” In 1985, he would comment: “''Savage Grace'' has to be the best oral history to come out since Edie.” {{sfn|Robins|1985}} Norman Mailer managed not only to get his name in Edie’s biography, but also on its cover, as well as mention it on an- other biography altogether—about ''Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous Family'', the doomed Baekelands.

One cannot mention Mailer’s association with fame and doom without also invoking the Kennedy name. In the late 1980s, he would mirror his comments on Marilyn Monroe with Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, {{sfn|Garrison|1988}} detailing the JFK shooting as “a conspiracy.” Of Summers’ Conspiracy: The {{pg|459|460}} ''Definitive Book on the JFK'' Assassination he would say, “I began it again as soon as I finished.” However, none of these was as lauded as ''Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption''. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} At 82, Mailer was still going strong—the University of Texas had just purchased his archive for $2.5 million—and he was more than willing to contribute this blurb for Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s book:
<blockquote> Books about famous American families usually land with a pious splat, or look to excavate a mud hole, but this one is a beauty. The Kennedys have had more achievements and more God-size disasters than most of us can ever know, but not one of the Kennedys has been a good writer. That verdict can now be al- tered . . . given as far as he chooses to go, he certainly tells it like it is. Three cheers. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} </blockquote>
Such a prominent and sprawling family name brings to mind Mailer’s own blood, specifically Cy Rembar, whose work, ''The End of Obscenity,'' {{sfn|Rembar|1968}} came only a few years after Norman’s testimony in favor of ''The Naked Lunch.'' Rembar’s work was supported by his cousin as “a quiet and essentially modest account of a legal revolution,” and would be bookended in 1996 by Mailer’s approval of Peter Alson’s ''Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie'' as
<blockquote> [T]ough, vulnerable, poignant . . . Alson’s achievement is to limn the spiritual pain of a well-educated Yuppie who is not on his uppers. This he does as no one has before. So, his confessional becomes one of those few books which captures a generation. Since I am Peter Alson’s uncle, I will probably be accused of nepotism, but to hell with that—I would stand by the first para- graph if he were your nephew. Literature is thicker than blood.{{sfn|Alson|1996}} </blockquote>
In his contributions to covers, Mailer even took the time to contemplate the minutiae of modern life. There is joyous disgust in his blurb for Fenichell’s ''Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century'', {{sfn|Fenichell|1999|}} “At last! For anyone who hates plastics and loves good writing, this is the book to satisfy your anger, your passion, and your instinctive judgment, and all at once.” And one cannot ignore ''Vittorio’s Dog Book'', {{sfn|Fiorucci|2002}} a collection of drawings that inspired the novelist to admit, “Dogs have souls. The only question, in my mind, is {{pg|460|461}} whether theirs are more noble than ours. And I say this despite having seen a great deal of execrable behavior in the canine species.”

Few subjects have escaped Norman Mailer’s interest, and even fewer observations his keen eye. The collection of his blurbs is a collection of reflective vignettes, and serves as a testament to his relationship with the spooky art, his munificence toward fellow conjurers, and his role as a quick-change artist; a Renaissance man; a broker of the literary marketplace. When considering the endorsement of fellow authors, it is perhaps best to heed Mailer’s advice, included in a 1974 letter to Richard Goodwin for his work ''The 'American Condition'':

<blockquote> If your publishers wish to cut [the blurb], that’s all right with me, but I’d like them to show the rare courtesy of indicating how and where they’re going to make the cuts . . . it creates good will and the opposite causes a quiet rancor to build in people who begin as your champion . . . don’t [take] the blurb and pull out of it ‘a great book.’ {{sfn|Goodwin|1974}} </blockquote>

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite book |last=Alson |first=Peter |date=1996 |title= Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie |url= |location=New York |publisher=Crown Publishers, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Baldwin |first=James |date= 1965|title= Giovanni’s Room |url= |location= New York |publisher= |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Burroughs |first=William |date= 1962|title= Naked Lunch |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press|pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date=1985 |title= The Class of ’’49: A Novel and Two Short Stories |url= |location= New York |publisher=North Point Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date= 1966|title= Hard Rain Falling |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Corey |first=Dale |date=1997 |title=Inventing English: The Imaginative Origins of Everyday Expressions. |url= |location= New York |publisher=Berkley Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fenichell |first=Stephen |date=1999 |title=Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper business |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fiorucci |first=Vittorio |date=2002 |title=Vittorio’s Dog Book |url= |location= |publisher=Scarlet Claw Publishing, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Garrison |first=Jim |date=1988 |title=On the Trail of the Assassins |url= |location=New York |publisher=Sheridan Square Pub |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Richard |date=1974 |title=The American Condition |url= |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= Greenstein |first= Jennifer |date=April 2000 |title= Advertisement for Himself |url= |magazine= Brill’s Content |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Harmon |first=Sandra |date=1975 |title=A Girl Like Me |url= |location=New York |publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |date=1951 |title=From Here to Eternity |url= |location=New York |publisher= Charles Scribner’s Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=2009 |title=Lies My Mother Never Told Me |url= |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=1990 |title=Quite the OtherWay |url= |location=New York |publisher=Fawcett |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite interview |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |subject-link= |date=11 June 2009 |title=Telephone Interview |url= |work= |interviewer-last= |interviewer-first= |interviewer-link= |location= |publisher= |access-date=}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Myron |date=1957 |title=Remember Me to God |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=J. P. Lippincott |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Larry |date=1986 |title=None But a Blockhead |url= |location=New York |publisher=Viking Adult |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lawford |first=Christopher Kennedy |date=2005 |title=Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J.Michael. |date=2000 |title=Norman Mailer: Works and Days |url= |location=Shavertown, PA |publisher=Sligo Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= |first= |date=4 August 1952 |title=Made in Japan |url= |magazine=Time Magazine |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|"Made in Japan"|1952 }}}}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title=Mailer: His Life and Times |url= |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mills |first=Hiliary |date=1982 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nakae |first=Kiyose |date=1958 |title=Jiu-Jitsu Complete |url= |location=New York |publisher=Wehman Bros |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= |first= |title=Norman Mailer |url= |journal=1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium |volume= |issue= |date=1999 |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid }}}}
* {{cite document |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=4 March 1974 |title=Letter to Richard Goodwin |location= |publisher= |page=}}
* {{cite document |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=11 May 1981 |title=Letter to Larry L. King |location= |publisher=The Daily Beast |page=}}
* {{cite book |last=Rembar |first=Charles |date=1968 |title=The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Reuter |first=Madalynne |date=8 February 1985 |title=1,000 Writers toMeet in New York at PEN International Congress |url= |magazine=Publisher’s Weekly |pages=23-24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Robins |first=Natalie |last=Aronson |first=Steven |date=1985 |title=Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rosten |first=Norman |date=1972 |title=Over and Out |url= |location=New York |publisher=George Braziller |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Skellings |first=Edmund |date=1976 |title=Heart Attacks |url= |location=Gainesville |publisher=UP of Florida |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Slatzer |first=Robert F. |date=1975 |title=The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=New York |publisher=Pinnacle |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Stein |first=Jean |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1982 |title=Edie: An American Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Summers |first=Anthony |date=1989 |title=Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the J.F.K. Assassination |url= |location=St. Paul |publisher=Paragon House Publishing |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Tasaki |first=Hanama |date=1950 |title=Long the Imperial Way |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Torres |first=Jose |date=1971 |title=Sting Like a Bee: The Mohammad Ali Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Curtis Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Westoff |first=Leslie Aldridge |last=Stein |first=Daniel S. |date=1999 |title=Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You |url= |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |pages= |ref=harv }}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T21:12:14Z

2025-04-01T20:54:17Z

NrmMGA5108: /* Works Cited */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES PURCHASED BECAUSE OF A PLAYMATE’ S ALLURE, most ''Playboy'' magazines get read cover-to-cover, confirming the quip “I buy it for the articles.” Because less than ten percent of each issue contains nudity, the majority of monthly pages are well-known editorial features, such as the ''Playboy'' Advisor or the ''Playboy'' Interview, advice columns, cultural commentary, humor and literary selections. Using ''Esquire'' as a model, Hugh Hefner published fiction to position ''Playboy'' as more than a mere “skin-magazine.” Hefner juxtaposed the nude pictorials with literature because he believed that, for proper stimulation, both the mind and body should be addressed. The quantity of fiction published in ''Playboy'' is astonishing, making fiction the single largest component of the magazine. In just its first year of publication, from December 1953 to 1954, ''Playboy'' devoted 168 pages to literary selections, over thirty percent of its content (Lambkin 26).{{sfn|Lambkin|2010|p=12}} In the 1960s the magazine maintained over 200-page issues and published elite critics and authors such as Alfred Kazin, William F. Buckley, Leslie Fiedler, Ray Bradbury, James Baldwin, and Vladimir Nabokov. Most of ''Playboy’s'' fiction is either written by popular, contemporary authors or can be classified as a parody by an unknown author of a famous story. The cultural currency of contemporary authors or familiar narratives helped sell copies—by 1973, ''Playboy’s'' paid circulation peaked at seven million per month (Pitzulo 12).{{sfn|Pitzulo|2011|p=12}} ''Playboy'' editors particularly sought out authors or fictional selections that would help them re-masculinize the act of reading in the midst of the Cold War gender debates. To fulfill this objective, editors first looked to Ernest Hemingway because the Hemingway code hero exemplifies the quintessential Playboy qualities—strong, adventuresome, educated, and womanizing

{{pg|199|200}}

Then, after his death in 1961, Playboy used Hemingway’s obvious successor— Norman Mailer.

In 1956, Hefner hired ''Playboy’s'' first renowned literary editor, Auguste Comte Spectorsky, an up-and-coming journalist, for the express purpose of elevating the magazine’s literary content. Hefner considered Spectorsky “a real heavyweight” because of his literary talents and East Coast connections. Spectorsky’s ''The Exurbanites'' had recently reached the Best Sellers list, and he had the literary connections needed to “upgrade” ''Playboy’s'' fiction (Fraterrigo 32).{{sfn|Fraterrigo|2009|p=32}} Once on the editorial board, Spectorsky began recruiting personal friends to contribute the magazine. He solicited fiction and non-fiction pieces from Ken Purdy, Philip Wylie, Vance Packard, and John Steinbeck. Even if Hefner and Spectorsky did not always agree on lifestyle choices, they were both committed to producing a virile, high-culture publication. Hefner’s vision was to embellish and surround sex with the trappings of high culture. Spectorsky, on the other hand, wanted to “reinvent sophisticated culture itself by bracketing it with heterosexual desire” (Gilbert 207).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=207}} Combining nude pictorials with good writing and sophisticated advertising allowed ''Playboy'' the opportunity to re-masculinize both reading and consumerism, two activities that were supposedly feminized during the post-war era.

Spectorsky viewed ''Playboy'' as his platform to “redefine male readers as ‘whole men’” (Gilbert 207).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=207}} He wrote:

<blockquote> Each issue is a tacit statement to [readers] that they are responsive to fine fiction and to pretty girls; to Lucullan dining and drinking and to serious articles and interviews that bear directly or philosophically on today’s serious issues; to sports cars and classical music, jazz, fashion, the struggle for civil rights, bachelor high-life, and the world of business and finance. (qtd. in Gilbert 207){{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=207}} </blockquote>

Spectorsky sincerely believed that ''Playboy'' was a viable vehicle from which to “preach” his literary tastes. For Spectorsky, the literary selections would provide readers an outlet for discussing the pertinent issues of the day, affording them the knowledge needed for sophisticated conversations.

It was important to Spectorsky to devise clear guidelines to ensure that the literature of ''Playboy'' would celebrate a particular kind of masculinity. These

{{pg|200|201}}

literary guidelines suggest that Hefner and Spectorsky believed that literary selections were a crucial component of the ethos of ''Playboy.'' Spectorsky instructed his fiction staff to discard any “castration-defeat-doom stories” in favor of “Hemingway heroes . . . who deal with the world instead of cringing and having high-tone failures” (Gilbert 208).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=208}} Spectorsky also based much of his criteria for quality fiction on Hemingway’s writing style—clear, economical prose, machismo or womanizing, rich imagery, and simple, albeit vigorous, word choice. Using Hemingway, the author and the man, to advertise the magazine’s commitment to masculinity, Spectorsky helped resurrect the masculine, intellectual man during the 1950s gender debates.

In order to promote ''Playboy’s'' macho literary persona and maintain a heavy dose of Hemingway, Spectorsky commissioned Norman Mailer for various publications. For instance, the January 1963 issue contains a special portfolio on “man’s politics and sport, his business and pleasure, his competition and credo” that couples Hemingway’s “A Man’s Credo” with Mailer’s debate on right-wing American politics. And, in the laudatory introduction to the ''Playboy'' Interview with Norman Mailer, the editors claim that “Mailer is as colorful and publicized as any writer since Ernest Hemingway”(69, Jan. 1968). Featuring Hemingway first, followed by Mailer, ''Playboy'' editors could assure readers that elite literature would not negate readers’ masculinity. Spectorsky could easily use Mailer in this capacity because of the multiple themes and concerns connecting these literary giants, including their iconoclastic status.

As articles in the 2010 issue of the ''Norman Mailer Review'' illustrate, the connections between Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer range from bullfights to multiple wives. Erik Nakjavani argues that Hemingway’s influence on Mailer was so acute that the younger author “came to ''embody'' Hemingway’s influence, identifying with him” and developing affinities with him (166, emphasis original).{{sfn|Nakjavani|2010|p=161–191}} Scholars such as J. Michael Lennon, James Meredith, Mark Cirino, and Barry Leeds prove that themes of boxing, war, violence, and firearms unite two of the most famous twentieth-century century writers. Constructing female characters as objects also links them. In “Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman,” Mimi Gladstein chronicles how both authors became “favorite whipping boys for feminist critics” for creating a “certain kind of fantasy woman, a projection of autoerotic impulses, by which they allow themselves, imaginatively, privileges that they did not have in life” (288-289).{{sfn|Gladstein|2010|p=288-289}} And, in “Hemingway, Mailer,

{{pg|201|202}}

and the ‘Reds’,” Victor Peppard rightly asserts that their common interests are “no secret.” Both authors were preoccupied with “macho tests of manhood.” Hemingway’s interests included hunting big game, boxing, and bullfights, and while Mailer was “more of a boxer than a bullfighter . . . he was always a battler whatever the arena” (Peppard 227).{{sfn|Peppard|2010|p=227}} Tests of manhood often appear in their respective works and they both became controversial cultural figures in their personal lives. Both continue to loom over the American cultural landscape because of their notoriety and literary achievements.

Hemingway’s literary presence dictated much of ''Playboy’s'' editorial content, even though his words appeared minimally in the magazine. According to Thomas Weyr’s ''Reaching for Paradise'', Hefner desperately wanted to include a Hemingway original in the inaugural 1953 issue (10). Yet due to the magazine’s content and budgetary restraints—''Playboy’s'' first issue’s editorial content only cost $2,000—Hefner could not obtain the Hemingway, John O’Hara, or James Thurber pieces he so desired (Weyr 10).{{sfn|Weyr|1978|p=10}} ''The New Yorker'' “haughtily” refused to sell Hefner reprint rights for a Thurber piece and Hemingway’s publisher rejected Hefner’s request “because his magazine had not ‘demonstrated its character’” (Miller 35).{{sfn|Miller|1985|p=35}} It would take three years and over 300,000 subscribers until Hefner and Spectorsky could include Hemingway’s presence in the magazine. They commissioned Jed Kiley for his unauthorized Hemingway biography, which was serialized over eight issues. Beginning with the first installment of Kiley’s “Hemingway: A Title Bout in Ten Rounds,” Hefner and Spectorsky added to the myths of Papa. In the September 1956 “Playbill,” editors proclaimed Hemingway as a man of “unimpeachable morals” and possibly the “greatest writer in the world”(4). Editors reminded readers that Hemingway has, for many years, “hit the bottle, tum- bled wenches” and “enjoyed such organized carnage as war and bullfighting” (2). Quick to dismiss his actions as neither immoral nor sinful, editors described Hemingway as a cheater of death who became “a scarred and bearded American legend, a Great White Hunter, a husband of four wives, a winner of Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes” (2). They quoted Kazin’s praise of Hemingway as “the bronze god of the whole contemporary literary experience in America” (2). But what seems most important about the Hemingway myth is that he hails from a Midwest, middle-class family—the same family history as Hefner and many ''Playboy'' readers. His roots and eventual fame make Hemingway the quintessential ''Playboy'' author: growing out of middle- class America and a devoutly Christian home, Hemingway became “the

{{pg|202|203}}

hard-drinking, death-happy . . . swaggering, irresponsible author of bestselling Hollywood fodder” (2). This image of Hemingway, a Midwestern everyman turned courageous, financially successful, and intellectual, sup- ports the grand narrative ''Playboy'' presented for its readers—every male has the potential to get the woman of his choice if he works hard, participates in capitalism, and reads quality fiction.

''Playboy'' editors amplified the Hemingway myth throughout the 1960s. In January 1961, ''Playboy'' published “Hemingway Speaks his Mind,” quotations from a variety of Hemingway’s collected works. Editors thoroughly searched Hemingway’s works for scraps of prose that would suggest that his life style mimics those of a Playboy. Introduced as “a philosophy of life,” ''Playboy'' used this four-page feature to present Hemingway as an honorary Playboy (95, Jan. 1961). There are quoted topics range from musings on Cuban women to his many cats, but the myth of the man that emerges is one of strength and smarts. For instance, Hemingway’s observations about war, being hit with a mortar shell, drinking, boxing, bullfighting, cooking a lion steak, deep-sea fishing, gate-crashing, and cursing remind readers of his masculine persona. His ruminations on hunting are particularly insightful: “You must be calm inside, as if you were in church, when a lion or a rhino is coming at you” (96, Jan. 1961). Hemingway’s use of the second person oddly addresses ''Playboy'' readers, in the comforts of their suburban homes or urban bachelor pads.

Hemingway’s quotations concerning sexual relationships also support the ''Playboy'' lifestyle. In “On Love,” for example, Hemingway writes that love is “an old word, and each man takes it new and wears it out himself” (96, Jan. 1961). This musing suggests that each man observes relationships differently—those Playboys that reject the monogamous life of the nuclear family can still find their own kind of love. In this passage, Hemingway blesses male readers to wear out their own version of love. Even in his dreams, Hemingway was the spitting image of a Playboy: “In my nocturnal wanderings I am always between twenty-five and thirty years old and am irresistible to women, dogs, and on one occasion, to a very beautiful lioness, who subsequently became my fiancée” (96, Jan. 1961). As tamers of women, dogs, and wild cats, readers could model their behavior on Hemingway’s actions in order to obtain their next catch. The things Hemingway deemed good are equivalent to what ''Playboy'' readers should want: wine, bread, bed, early mornings, the sea, women, love, and honor (97). In this list, Hemingway

{{pg|203|204}}

conflates necessities, like food and sleep, with amenities like women and early mornings. Much of ''Playboy’s'' editorial content, like its monthly Playmate, promoted similar notions—sex and honor were both necessary and attainable.

After the success of “Hemingway Speaks his Mind,” ''Playboy'' continued to use the myth of Hemingway to advance its literary selections and grand narrative. Editors even applied parodies of Hemingway’s famous titles to pictorials and satire pieces. For example, in the July 1961 issue editors published Barry Spacks’s “For Whom the Booth Tolls.” Editors meticulously labeled Spacks’s work “outrageous” in its “attention getting (and moneymaking) device” (5). Unlike satires and parodies of other authors, editors were careful to honor Hemingway. Later that same year, Spectorsky serialized Hemingway’s first authorized biography. Spectorsky paid a reported $25,000—approximately equivalent to $160,000 in current U.S. dollars— for the serialization rights (Hale).{{sfn|Hale|2011}} Beginning in December 1961, Leicester Hemingway’s “My Brother Ernest,” spanned four issues and over sixty pages. Published only eight months after Hemingway’s suicide, “My Brother Ernest” received favorable reviews from ''Playboy'' readers. The text was later expanded, published by Pineapple Press, and reached the ''New York Times'' list of 100 outstanding books for summer reading in 1962. ''Playboy'' continued the Hemingway trend with “Papa and the Playwright,” a review of Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, Evgeny Evtushenko’s “Meeting with Hemingway,” Patrick Hemingway’s “My Papa, Papa” and Hemingway’s only play, ''“The Fifth Column.”''

Readers responded so well to the Hemingway material that Spectorsky published Hemingway’s “Advice to Young Men” in 1964. Consisting of previously unpublished observations on some of the ground rules of life and literature, this piece is eerily similar to the earlier “Hemingway Speaks His Mind,” sans the heavy dose of observation on traditional masculine activities like boxing, big-game hunting, and fishing. The main focus of “Advice to a Young Man” was on the art of writing and responding to critics. In this piece, Hemingway shared his wisdom on other topics, most notably education, achieving success, happiness, living with honor, prejudice, death, faith, and the future. The feature concludes with a Hemingway quotation that reinforces ''Playboy’s'' call for its readers: “All the glory of life, all the romance of living, all the deep and true joys of the world, all the splendor and the mystery are within our reach” (225, Jan. 1965). Hemingway’s posthumous advice

{{pg|204|205}}

echoes the ''Playboy'' stance on working hard to enjoy the products of capital- ism with a female companion.
Relying so heavily on Hemingway allowed Spectorsky to “advertise the magazine’s commitment to masculinity” (Gilbert 209).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=209}} His “reputation as a literary tough guy” had been well established in the 1930s (Osgerby 45).{{sfn|Osgerby|2001|p=45}} ''Esquire'' proudly featured Hemingway for his “rough-hewn machismo,” even offering him one thousand shares of stock in 1937 (Osgerby 47).{{sfn|Osgerby|2001|p=47}} Due to Hefner’s relationship with ''Esquire'' and Spectorsky’s desire to remasculinize readers, Hemingway became the obvious “godfather” for the journal during the early Cold War. Rather than publish what Spectorsky deemed literature of “morass incense and butterflies and Spanish moss, of ''précieuse'' style and hyperfine imagery,” ''Playboy'' published what it considered to be elite, although accessible, fiction for its masculine audience (2, Sept. 1956). It did not want any writers too busy “exploring stylistic jungles”; instead, it wanted Hemingway, “perhaps because he has trekked many a real jungle in his life” (4, Sept. 1956). Spectorsky claimed that he wanted to veer away from stories likely published by ''The New Yorker'', stories that reflected what he called a “womanized,” “neurotic,” and “castrating world”(Gilbert 208).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=208}} He promoted Hemingway’s attributes because he knew that ''Playboy'' “was surely” to “get literally hundreds of ‘fine’ stories a month which are intricate embroidery on the motto: The Sensitive Misfit is a More Interesting Man and a worthier Topic than the The Man Who Fulfils His Masculine Destiny” (Gilbert 208).{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=208}} Instead of wasting time reviewing stories about sensitive misfits or mutilated heroes, Spectorsky wanted Hemingway heroes.

And yet, ironically, Hemingway’s heroes are often castrated in one way or another. While many of Hemingway’s characters are “real” men on the battlefield or on the hunting grounds, they could also be classified as androgynous in terms of their sexuality. In ''Ernest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism'', Richard Fantina reappraises the foundations of the old Hemingway myth of machismo and argues that his fiction’s “greatest legacy” may be the “embodiment of diverse models of masculinity”(3).{{sfn|Fantina|2005|p=3}} Well before Hemingway scholars revised perceptions of him as the ultimate American macho man in the 1990s, ''Playboy'' editors subtly address misgivings about Heming- way’s sexuality. In the same “Playbill” that praises him in comparison to other contemporary writers as a “standing out like a rugged oak in a field of delicate pansies,” editors call Hemingway “sexually insecure”(2).{{sfn|Fantina|2005|p=2}} Why would ''Playboy'' editors admit this in the same announcement that begins over a

{{pg|205|206}}

decade of Hemingway contributions? Why would a magazine, striving to push its heterosexual agenda on middle-class American men, place such precedence on a sexually insecure author? Quite possibly, Spectorsky assumed his readership would miss the subtle classification. Maybe Spectorsky only published Hemingway non-fiction to avoid the obvious contradictions. Or, and more likely, the myth of the man and the Hemingway code looms larger than fiction.

Similar to its heralding of Hemingway, ''Playboy'' relied on the cultural myths surrounding Mailer. Beyond his combative prose, controversial comments, and wife stabbing, Mailer presides over American literature “longer and larger than any writer of his generation” (McGrath).{{sfn|McGrath|2007}} The “most transparently ambitious author of his era,” Mailer was a prolific author, social commentator, and cultural provocateur (McGrath).{{sfn|McGrath|2007}} He cofounded ''The Village Voice'', won the Pulitzer Prize twice, ran for New York City Mayor, married six different women, fathered eight children (and adopted a ninth), directed films, appeared on talk-shows, and participated in many interviews, making the Mailer name a household one. In short, Mailer’s ever-present, masculine persona, ambition, and the immense quantity of his work make him an appropriate Playboy contributor. Like Hemingway in the 1930s, Mailer had already established his tough-guy persona by the end of the 1950s. The violence in his war novel, ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1948), and the obscenity in ''The Deer Park'' (1959) set the stage for Mailer’s 1959 ''Advertisements for Myself'': “a tough-guy writer’s apologia for his literary life” (Castronovo 180).{{sfn|Castronovo|2011|p=180}} In his life and literature, Mailer can stand in as a Hemingway hero, especially because Mailer lacked Hemingway’s ambiguous sexuality. Mailer consistently conducted himself with grace under pressure through the various tumults in his career. Thus, ''Playboy'' editors, from Spectorsky to Christine Hefner, frequently published Mailer to connect with their male readers. When reviewed as a body of work, Mailer’s multiple Playboy contributions reflect the historical shifts in post-war masculinity constructions, the same changes ''Playboy’s'' editorials depict. As a popular author with staggering amounts of testosterone present in his best-selling fiction, Mailer’s virile image fits comfortably into ''Playboy’s'' agenda. Beginning with an “After Hours” Book Review reference to ''The Deer Park'' in January 1958, and lasting to the publication of his conversation with Michael Lennon, “On the Authority of the Senses,” in December 2007, Mailer contributed directly to ''Playboy'' on seventeen occasions. Mailer’s numerous appearances in the magazine

{{pg|206|207}}

range from panelist to cultural critic. ''Playboy'' paid him $5,000 to reprint his debate with William F. Buckley and, in 1967, Mailer offered ''Playboy'' his essay on bullfighting. Then, in 1975, he wrote over 28,000 words on the prizefight between Ali and Foreman, which ''Playboy'' published in two installments (with rare illustrations). He continued to offer the magazine selections on sports and politics at the turn of the century. In 2004 ''Playboy'' published Mailer’s “Immodest Proposals,” a call to American voters to review the government’s handling of war, welfare, imprisonment, abortion, gay-marriage, and foreign policy. ''Playboy'' posthumously published “A Man of Letters” in January 2009 to honor Mailer. The byline to the feature reads, “A literary giant’s correspondence on Hollywood, celebrity, and society shows him to be a critic and crusader, pugilist and poet” (70, Jan. 2007). The simple eulogy for a poetic boxer sums up why ''Playboy'' continued to rely on Mailer for his nonfiction and fiction contributions: Mailer’s persona represented ''Playboy’s'' commitment to masculinity and intellect.

Although an apropos ''Playboy'' author, Mailer’s relationship with ''Playboy'' involved lawsuits coupled with considerable praise. After ''Playboy'' editors paid Mailer for the essay report on the Buckley’s debates, Mailer sued ''Playboy'' on the grounds that his essay was worth more than the paid sum (Buckley).{{sfn|Buckley|2010}} Mailer also wrote to the editors, denouncing them for labeling him a liberal: “I don’t care if people call me a radical, a red, a revolutionary, an outsider, an outlaw, a Bolshevik, an anarchist, a nihilist or even a left conservative, but please don’t ever call me a liberal” (8, April 1963). And later, in 1975, Elmo Henderson sued ‘’Playboy’’ for publishing “The Fight,” in which Mailer created the factoid that Henderson had been in an insane asylum (Manso 560).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=560}} But according to one of ''Playboy’s'' executive editors, Arthur Kretchmer, Mailer was “a long-run investment” (Manso 561).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=561}} In an excerpt from Peter Manso’s ''Mailer: His Life and Times’’, Kretchmer explains how ''Playboy'' did not “function on pornography or ''Enquirer''-like sensationalism. It functioned on the fact that people who read ''Playboy'' have a certain sense of upscale events, and Norman’s part of that psychology” (Manso 561).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=561}} By distancing ''Playboy from Enquirer'', Kretchmer suggests that ''Playboy'' readers are much more sophisticated than those that read either sensational or pornographic media. Mailer’s contributions, then, are used to elevate the magazine’s content. In the 1970s, Kretchmer wanted to publish a magazine that

{{pg|207|208}}

<blockquote>reflect[s] what’s going on in America … and that magazine has to have Norman because it’s a different world without Norman. ''Playboy'' with Norman is a magazine of the moment, of impact. Powerfully, incontestably, Norman has tried to express our era. He looks through infinity and says, ‘Who are we? What have we done? What can be done?’ (Manso 561){{sfn|Manso|2008|p=561}} </blockquote>

Kretchmer’s insights implies that both ''Playboy'' and Mailer worked to articulate America’s cultural concerns, and because of that shared objective, ''Playboy'' editors dismissed the legal trouble in favor of a working relationship with Mailer.

Kretchmer seems beguiled by Mailer, but other magazine editors, like William Phillips of the ''Partisan Review'' and Gordon Lish from ''Esquire'', also solicited work from Mailer. Based on his growing fame, ''Esquire'' accepted Mailer’s offer to write a monthly column, “The Big Bite,” which ran from November 1962 to December 1963 (Dearborn 179).{{sfn|Dearborn|2001|p=179}} Clay Felker, ''Esquire'' editor, claimed that he assigned Mailer to write about Jackie Kennedy because “at ''Esquire'' we loved to start fights” and hiring Mailer to write about the First Lady immediately after he had stabbed his wife was “obvious” (Manso 353).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=353}} The enthusiasm surrounding Mailer as a magazine contributor was only reinforced when his “The Prisoner of Sex” (1971) sold more copies of ''Harper’s'' than any other issue in the magazine’s history (Manso 462).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=462}}

Like Kretchmer’s praise for the author, Mailer’s praise for the ''Playboy'' empire and its founding editor seemed equally enthusiastic. When covering the Liston-Patterson fights, Mailer stayed at the ''Playboy'' mansion and recorded his first impressions of an after-hours ''Playboy'' party. After detailing the mansion’s exaggerated dimensions, Mailer compared Hefner to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s archetypal, white, male American hero: “one never saw one’s host except for once or twice in some odd hour of the night. He had a quality not unlike Jay Gatsby, he looked and talked like a lean, rather modest cowboy of middle size; there was something of a mustang about Hefner” (qtd. in Miller 130).{{sfn|Miller|1985|p=130}} Mailer claimed that Hefner was “not the kind of man one would have expected to see as the publisher of his magazine, or the owner of the Playboy Club, nor certainly as the undemanding host of his exceptional establishment” (qtd. in Miller 130).{{sfn|Miller|1985|p=130}} Here, Mailer hints at Hefner’s subtle allure. His unassuming demeanor makes him a surprising candidate for the head of the

{{pg|208|209}}

flamboyant ''Playboy'' empire and this exchange of praise reveals how integral cultural myths can be for the success of a mass produced, glossy magazine. ''Playboy'' commissioned Mailer to support its agenda as a with-the-times magazine and to “further gentrif[y]” its heterosexual perception (Schuchardt).{{sfn|Schuchardt|2005}} In the first ''Playboy'' “Panel” on “Censorship in Literature and the Arts,” editors introduced Mailer as “among the forefront of individualistic, iconoclastically outspoken American author” (27, July 1961). Throughout the panel exchanges, Mailer lived up to that introduction: he “polemicized against masturbation and argued that open labeling of pornographic literature as such was vital for ‘the health and life of the republic,’ but that pleading its socially redeeming values was not” (Weyr 92).{{sfn|Weyr|1978|p=92}} Mailer’s insights on censorship shine amidst the jumbled thinking presented by the other panelists and he was asked to return for the next year’s panel on “The Womanization of America” (June 1962). The panel, which was Spectorsky’s idea, was intended to respond to Philip Wylie’s scathing arguments regarding a supposed power shift between the genders—and Mailer’s career and personal life made him well-suited for the discussion. By 1962 Mailer had published three bestsellers and married three different women.

In the introduction to the seventeen-page panel, ''Playboy'' editors once again refer to Mailer’s iconoclastic status and, throughout the panel discussion, Mailer endorsed Spectorsky’s claim that men are in need of re-masculination. Mailer contended that “women are becoming more selfish, more greedy, less romantic, less warm, more lusty, and more filled with hate” (44, June 1962). However, Mailer did go on to state that male collaboration needed to be accounted for in the gender-role demise. Pinpointing the Cold War as the “certain historical phenomenon” that “allowed penis envy to develop,” Mailer eloquently stated that during these “renaissance” moments in history, there is a tendency for “this coming together of sexes” (134, 139, June 1962). Aware of his audience and the magazine’s heterosexual bias, Mailer immediately reaffirmed his heterosexuality by stating that the increasing numbers of homosexuals during the Cold War can be attributed to a “general loss of faith in the country, faith in the notion of one’s self as a man” (142). Mailer had obviously not lost any faith in himself as a man, so his sexuality and commitment to phallocentric concerns remained intact.

After Mailer’s discerning comments on gender and sexuality, the conversation degraded until Mailer, once again, culturally contextualized the issues. According to Carrie Pitzulo’s study, ''Bachelors and Bunnies: The Sexual''

{{pg|209|210}}

''Politics of Playboy'', panelists “primarily fixated on inane debates” (Pitzulo 31).{{sfn|Pitzulo|2011|p=31}} For example, in response to ''Playboy’s'' concerns about some females refusing to complete household chores, three of the panelists debate the cost of aprons and the difference between drying and washing dishes. Mailer then stated that “there’s been a shift in the social and biological function of the woman, where she expected . . . not so much to create a home as she is to be an aide-de-camp or staff general to an ambitious opportunist” (49, June 1962). Mailer’s comments, regarding the change in duties for postwar women, hints at the supposed mid-century masculinity crisis—being a blue-collar worker was no longer sufficient for most men. Rather, the stresses of the Cold War and the evolving capitalistic economy forced men to adapt to domineering images of hyper-masculinity. Readers’ responses to the panel, as published in the “Dear ''Playboy''” letters, suggest that Mailer’s statements eclipsed the other panelists. Out of the four published “Dear ''Playboy''” letters that mention the womanization panel, three praise Mailer and the letter from John T. Gosset exclaims that Mailer’s insights “astounded” him (9, September 1962).

At the panel’s conclusion, Mailer reminded ''Playboy'' readers that “masculinity is not something one is born with, but something one gains. And one gains it by winning small battles with honor” (142, June 1962). He warned those American men who fear the destruction of their masculinity to be wary of mass media because it gives an unrealistic view of life. Mailer claimed that the majority of mass media is out to “destroy virility slowly and steadily” (142, June 1962). This argument directly reinforced Spectorsky’s thoughts on the fundamental malaise about masculinity in America, as well as supported his argument that ''Playboy'' is a necessity for American males. American men needed magazines like ''Playboy'' to help combat the insipid depictions of masculinity in the mass media. And ''Playboy'' needed Mailer’s contributions to do so. Mailer’s presence on both panels reinforced his machismo status and added to ''Playboy’s'' cultural currency.

Mailer’s machismo reputation further aligned the author with the ''Playboy'' empire, especially during the battle of the sexes. Both Mailer and the ''Playboy'' enterprise received intense criticism from second-wave feminists. Mailer’s fiction often sparked deserved critique for its objectification of female characters or depiction of sexual violence. In the classic ''Sexual Politics'', Kate Millet analyzes Mailer’s fiction and claims that he was long ago designated a “prisoner of the virility cult.” Mailer’s response to her literary

{{pg|210|211}}

criticism, “The Prisoner of Sex,” sparked acrimonious debates, like the very public, 1971 Town Hall debate with feminists Germaine Greer and Jill Johnston. And at the 1986 birthday celebration of the Feminist Writers Guild, attendants played “Pin the Tail on Norman Mailer” in “satiric protest against what they consider his antifeminist writings” (Blades).{{sfn|Blades|1986}} In a similar vein, ''Playboy'' has dealt with its own share of feminist critique for the past five decades. From its inception, critics have lambasted the magazine for its centerfold: “it fetishized busty, young bodies for straight male consumption” (Pitzulo 35).{{sfn|Pitzulo|2011|p=35}} ''Playboy'' garnered backlash from feminists, such as Betty Friedan, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Gloria Steinem, as well as anti-pornography activists Gail Dines and Catharine MacKinnon. Steinem published her damning exposé on working conditions at the ''Playboy'' clubs in ''Show'' magazine and faced-off with Hefner for ''McCall’s'' magazine in a lengthy interview in 1970. Copies of ''Playboy'' were tossed into a “freedom trashcan” as part of the 1968 Miss America Pageant protest and ''Playboy'' confronted the feminist movement with its article “Up Against the Wall, Male Chauvinist Pig” (May 1970). Hefner intended the piece to criticize radical feminists, but his condemnation of the militants solidified his—and ''Playboy''’s—reputation as anti-feminist.

''Playboy'' editors balanced the negative attention from Steinem’s experience as a ''Playboy'' Bunny with Mailer’s appreciation of the clubs. Mailer’s presence at the ''Playboy'' clubs and mansion “lent” them “literary and symbolic cachet they have won from few other public personalities” (Weyr 78).{{sfn|Weyr|1978|p=78}} In “Ten Thousand Words a Minute,” Mailer does not censure the guests’ egregious behavior toward the female employees, nor does he disapprove of the Bunnies’ attire. Instead, Mailer matter-of-factly states that the club “looked about the way one thought it would look” with corporate executive patrons and Bunnies in all colors (qtd. in Weyr 78).{{sfn|Weyr|1978|p=78}} Whereas Steinem claimed the boning in her bunny costume would have made “Scarlett O’Hara blanch and the entire construction tended to push all available flesh up to the bosom,” Mailer complimented the outfits: the Bunny costume “exaggerated their hips, bound their waist in a ceinture and lifted them into phallic brassiere” (Steinem 39; Weyr 78).{{sfn|Steinem|1995|p=39}}{{sfn|Weyr|1978|p=78}} In his ''Presidential Papers'', Mailer compares a Bunny’s breasts to the “big bullet[s] on the front bumper of a Cadillac” (23).{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=23}} Mailer’s approval of the costume, like his comparison of Hefner to Fitzgerald, captured how editors wanted the culture to view ''Playboy''—as an American icon.

While superficial, his praise for the Bunnies and their uniforms reinforced the growing ''Playboy'' brand, compelling editors to also publish Mailer’s fiction

{{pg|211|212}}

Kretchmer classified ''Playboy’''s “dynamics” with Mailer as “interesting” because ''Playboy'' did not publish his fiction “for direct sales” (Manso 561).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=561}} Unlike other writers, such as Ian Fleming or Joseph Heller, who were understood as more commercial, ''Playboy'' published Mailer “simply” because he is “the most interesting writer, a writer you want to publish if you’re editing a magazine, and whether or not all of ''Playboy''’s readers are going to line up eagerly to buy the issue doesn’t really come into play” (Manso 561).{{sfn|Manso|2008|p=561}} Therefore, including Mailer in the magazine was more about building the ''Playboy'' brand than selling copies. Editors commissioned Mailer, like Hemingway, for his cultural status rather than his literature.

''Playboy'' published only three true fiction selections from Mailer: “Trial of the Warlock” (Dec. 1976), excerpts from ''Ancient Evenings'' (April and May 1983), and “The Changing of the Guard,” (Dec. 1988). Out of these three pieces, ''Ancient Evenings'' is the only work to have received critical attention, much of it mixed. Scholars have often overlooked the “Trial” and “The Changing of the Guard” but ''Playboy'' praised them both as quality, literary selections, even offering the “Trial” the annual $1,000 prize for Best Fiction for 1976 and later republishing the story in its anthology—Playboy ''Stories: The Best of Forty Years of Short Fiction'', edited by Alice K. Turner. And because his machismo fueled much of his fiction, Mailer’s fiction appear to fit Spectorsky’s stringent guidelines for ''Playboy''’s literary selections—masculine, Hemingway heroes, and clear, intellectual prose.

Mailer’s third literary contribution to ''Playboy'', “The Changing of the Guard,” complements all of Spectorsky’s original criteria for quality, virile fiction. The five-page feature represents intellectual machismo at its best: with lines like “it would have blasted her panties clear off her pubes” mingled with literary allusions to Hawthorne, Chaucer, and Fitzgerald, the narrator presents himself as an intellectual who enjoys “getting it on” with his mistress as well as cunnilingus with his wife (197, Dec. 1988). The simple plot, a nameless, first person narrator driving to his wife’s bed after a tryst with his mistress, allows for commentary on word choice, the Cold War, class, love, sex, masculinity, and ethics. The narrator constantly relays his relationship to certain words such as backside (for back of the shore), incest (his wife is his distant cousin), and distinguished (his wife, Kittredge, is “beautiful” in comparison to his “cheerful,” “common” mistress, Chloe). He even clarifies with a parenthetical aside that the “Yankee inn” in which he met his mistress is really “(Let us say: a Yankee-inn-type restaurant run by a Greek)”

{{pg|212|213}}

(196, Dec. 1988). This close attention to detail helps develop Mailer’s narrator as an intelligent main character and his occupation, as a spy for the CIA during the intensity of the Cold War, heightens his virility.

In between vulgar recollections of sexual intercourse, Mailer exposes his narrator’s perspicacity with philosophical asides, most notably his diatribe on masculinity. After explaining failed plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, the narrator describes Hugh Tremont Montague, his boss and “guru in ''machismo''” (196, Dec. 1988, emphasis original). Hugh’s hyper-masculinity reflects the “only spiritual art that American men and boys practice dependably”; the narrator claims that “we do not hope to peer into the pond of revelation so much as to pass through the iron gate of virility” (196, Dec. 1988). Hugh also happened to be married to Kittredge. When the narrator began his affair with Kittredge, he felt “like a hermit crab just moved into a more impressive carapace, and waiting to be dislodged” (196, Dec. 1988). Very high echelon in the CIA, Hugh worked with double and triple agents and participated in athletic activities. Hugh was a vision of virility until the narrator witnessed him “stove in at the waist,” after a rock-climbing accident (196, Dec. 1988). Seeing the man that gave him “life courses in grace under pressure” weakened and crying caused an “abrasion on the flesh of memory” (196, Dec. 1988). The narrator reacted to his boss’s demise by forcing his relationship with Kittredge to “climb from the dungeon of its inception” (196, Dec. 1988). The crippling of the narrator’s masculinity model “sentenced” him to maintain their relationship and drove him “spend hours slopping and sliding” on Chloe’s “overfriendly breasts” (197, Dec. 1988). Interspersing Hugh’s crumbling hypermasculinity with explicit sex scenes and intellectual commentary turns the narrator into a Hemingway code hero.

In order to maintain a sense of coherence within the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness, Mailer consistently returns to the icy road metaphor, making the short piece allegorical in nature. For the narrator, the dangers of driving on “a night as terrible as this—with sleet on the cusp of freezing” become inextricably linked with the dangers of monogamy (197, Dec. 1988). Toward the end of the story, the narrator “suddenly” realizes what he had been missing in his marriage: “a wife who could allow you to live not only with herself but with ten other women she could remind you of” (198, Dec. 1988). Mailer abruptly ends the piece with the narrator remembering his pledge of honesty to his wife. The narrator’s unknown plight must have left ''Playboy'' readers questioning the validity of taking a vow, as well as the

{{pg|214|215}}

slippery nature of conducting an affair. The story and its ending leave readers with a model of masculinity akin to ''Playboy''’s model of an upwardly mobile, educated, heterosexual man.

In comparison to some of Hemingway’s fiction in which castrated heroes do not always abide by the code, Mailer’s ''Playboy'' fiction offers a range of masculinity models for readers. According to Robert Caserio’s editorial introduction to the ''Journal of Modern Literature'', Mailer’s later fiction represents a “‘queering’ of his picture of masculinity,” and the novel ''Ancient Evenings'', in particular, suggests a “surrender and uncoupling” of Mailer’s ideas about masculinity and moral bravery (v, vi).{{sfn|Caserio|2006|p=v, vi}} In comparison to his 1960s works, like ''An American Dream and Why are We in Vietnam?, Ancient Evenings'' deals with homosexuality in “tolerant and even erotic fashion” (Dearborn 121).{{sfn|Dearborn|2001|p=121}} The novel’s protagonist narrator, a eunuch in a large harem, is anally penetrated and the most politically powerful man in the novel “gave Himself up to the little queens as if He were a woman” (124, April 1983). In an interview with John Whalen-Bridge regarding his later works, Mailer admits that, until ''Ancient Evenings'', he did not recognize homosexuality as “an element in all men” and has since come to understand homosexuality as “a bigger theme than [he] ever gave it credit for being” (vi). This change in views regarding sexuality suggests that Mailer revised his masculinist ideal in his later fiction and the ''Playboy'' excerpt of ''Ancient Evenings'' illustrates this revision. Magazine readers might have expected selections from the 700-page-plus novel to be more in line with ''Playboy''’s heterosexual agenda, but Mailer chose to include scenes that deal with “a spectrum of male motivation leading from homosexuality to machismo” (Lennon 331).{{sfn|Lennon|1888|p=331}} Within the ''Playboy'' excerpts of ''Ancient Evenings'', Mailer explores power relationships between men and depicts various masculinity models.

Similar to the excerpts from ''Ancient Evenings'', Mailer’s “Trial of the War- lock” deviates slightly from the model of masculinity presented in ''Playboy''’s strictly heterosexual editorial features. The story offers a “readable” “screen treatment” of J. K. Huysmans’s ''La Bas'' (Turner 333).{{sfn|Turner|1995|p=333}} Mailer appropriates the novel’s protagonist, Durtal, to revisit the 1891 fictional account of how Gilles de Rais transitions from being Joan of Arc’s second-in-command to a documented serial killer and practitioner of Satanism. The story seems to contain all of ''Playboy''’s necessary criteria: the hero is not castrated; he has no problem with blood or Satan—so he is obviously courageous. After swearing off sexual relations for religious reasons, Durtal becomes involved in a

{{pg|215|216}}

tumultuous affair with a married woman, so his sexuality is not ambiguous. And he is an intellectual, deeply entrenched in his research about the first serial documented serial killer. However, the focus of Durtal’s research is a man who “cannot speak of the thoughts I have when young boys pass before [his] eyes” (354). De Rais moves beyond the fifteenth-century acceptance of fornicating with young boys and begins to abduct, rape, and brutally murder them. Once dead, de Rais uses their bodies in unheard of ways for sexual pleasure. De Rais’ acts of necrophilia and pedophilia seem wildly extreme when compared to the tameness of gazing at a carefully posed centerfold. But the erotic nature of “Trial” and Mailer’s return to this century-old French novel about Satan in medieval Europe represent deviations from the literary selections of ''Playboy'' that may leave readers questioning things. Why would editors pay for and publish fiction that undermines its stated heterosexual objectives? Mailer’s tripartite role as novelist, journalist, and historian explains the fascination with the historical content, but the story’s form and style are extremely peculiar. Why a screen treatment? Why the use of the second person point of view? The original protagonist was a thinly veiled caricature of the original author, so what kind of layer does a new author offer? The panoply of unanswered questions, especially why ''Playboy'' would award it an annual prize when it has received scant criticism, proves that ''Playboy'' editors were willing to publish fiction based on an author’s cultural status. The “Trial” and ''Ancient Evenings'' might have undermined ''Playboy''’s grand narrative of heterosexuality, but because they were written by Norman Mailer, editors, like Kretchmer, wanted to include them.

Besides Mailer’s work, ''Playboy''’s relationship with literature is exceedingly complex. Recognized for publishing the century’s greatest writers, ''Playboy'' introduced its readers to serious literature, fiction that most would likely have never have been read if it were not sandwiched between pictorials or garish cartoons. Produced as a guidebook for young, urban men, it is surprising that much of ''Playboy''’s fiction destabilizes its grand narrative. Most of ''Playboy''’s 1960s fiction could be classified as Gothic romance, which often includes narratives of traditional marriage. English and American Literature Gothic scholar Marilyn Michaud analyzes why ''Playboy''’s early fiction “paradoxically” encouraged readers to become husbands. She questions “What does Gothic romance fiction teach the aspiring playboy? How does an aesthetically middle-brow publication with images of wholesome, semi-clad young women sit comfortably beside tales of horror and distress?” Exposing

{{pg|216|217}}

the magazine’s internal contradictions, Michaud argues it is “not surprising” to find traditional narratives in ''Playboy'' “given the gender politics and the national anxiety over masculinity in the postwar period.” Michaud concludes that the gothic stories, while seemingly paradoxical to Hefner’s agenda, reflect postwar culture because they focus on marriage and family. According to Michaud, teaching bachelors to be heroic rescuers of distraught females will teach them to be good husbands.{{sfn|Michaud|2010}}

Therefore, it seems plausible that while ''Playboy'' editors sought to publish approachable, entertaining fiction with masculine heroes, they would also publish works based on reputations or cultural myths regardless of the story’s content. In his ''Playboy'' interview, Mailer endorses this cultural concept when he says that “if Hemingway had been a pimply-faced kid instead of the man he was, his books wouldn’t have had the audience they commanded” (84, Jan. 1968). For Mailer, Hemingway had a “clear image” because the work and the man “bore a certain resemblance to each other” (84, Jan. 1968). Mailer goes on to say that this clear image is often necessary: “Americans like answers, not enigmas” (84, Jan. 1968). During his life, Hemingway used his solid, masculine persona to boost book sales and ''Playboy'' still uses that same sales model. And while Mailer confesses his “public personality probably hurts his sales” because it is much “more surrealistic” than Hemingway’s, ''Playboy'' editors continued to rely on him as a contributor (84, Jan. 1968).

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite news |last=Blades |first=John |date=10 July 1986 |title=Feminists Tap Mailer as Guest of Dishonor |url= |work=''Chicago Tribune'' |location=Chicago |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Buckley |first=William |date=1 April 2010 |title=Norman Mailer, R.I.P. |url= |magazine=''National Review Online'' |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Caserio |first=Robert |title=Editor’s Introduction. |url= |journal= ''Journal of Modern Literature'' |volume= |issue=30.1 |date=2006 |pages= v–viii |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= Castronovo |first=David |title=Norman Mailer As Midcentury Advertisement |url= |journal=''New England Review'' |volume=24.4 |issue= |date=2003 |pages=179-186 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=2001 |title=''Mailer: A Biography'' |url= |location=Boston |publisher= Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fantina |first=Richard |date=2005 |title=''Ernest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism'' |url= |location=New York |publisher= Palgrave |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= Fraterrigo |first=Elizabeth |date=2009 |title=''Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America'' |url= |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford UP |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=James |date=2005 |title=''Men in the Middle: Searching for Masculinity in the 1950s'' |url= |location=Chicago |publisher=Chicago UP |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Gladstein |first=Mimi |title=Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman. |url= |journal=''The Mailer Review'' |volume= |issue=4.1 |date=2010 |pages=288–302 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hale |first=Russell |date=n.d. |title= Contents of a Country: Leicester Hemingway’s Republic of New Atlantis |url= |location= |publisher=''Harry Ransom Center'' U of Texas |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lambkin |first=David John |date=1999 |title= Playboy’s First Year: A Rhetorical Construction of Masculine Sexuality |url= |location= |publisher=''Dissertations and Thesis: A&I ProQuest'' Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first= Michael |date=1988 |title= ''Conversations with Norman Mailer'' |url= |location=Jackson |publisher= UP of Mississippi |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1963 |title=''Presidential Papers'' |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=2008 |title=''Mailer: His Life and Times'' |url= |location=New York |publisher= Washington Square |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=McGrath |first=Charles |date=10 November 2007 |title=Norman Mailer, Towering Writer with Matching Ego, Dies at 84. |url= |magazine=''New York Times'' New York Times Books |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Michaud |first=Marilyn |date=25 March 2010 |title=''Playboy'' Magazine: Romance Fiction for Men. |url= |magazine=''Romance Fiction @'' Suite 101 |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Miller |first=Russell |date= |title=''Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy'' |url= |location= New York |publisher= Holt, Rinehart and Winston |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= Nakjavani |first=Eric |title=A Visionary Hermeneutic Appropriation: Meditation on Hemingway’s Influence on Mailer |url= |journal=''The Mailer Review'' |volume= |issue=4.1 |date=2010 |pages=161–191 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= Osgerby |first=Bill |date=2001 |title=''Playboys in Paradise : Masculinity, Youth and Leisure-Style in Modern America'' |url= |location=Oxford |publisher=Berg |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= Peppard |first=Victor |title=Hemingway, Mailer, and the ‘Reds’. |url= |journal=''The Mailer Review'' |volume= |issue=4.1 |date=2010 |pages=227–240 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Pitzulo |first=Carrie |date=2011 |title=''Bachelors and Bunnies: the Sexual Politics of Playboy'' |url= |location=Chicago |publisher=U of Chicago |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= Schuchardt |first= Mercer |date=13 Nov 2005 |title= The Cultural Victory of Hugh Hefner |url= |location= |publisher=''Orthodoxy Today.org'' |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= Steinem |first=Gloria |date=1995 |title=''Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions'' |url= |location=New York |publisher=Henry Hold |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Turner |first=Alice |date=1995 |title=''Playboy Stories: The Best of Forty Years of Short Fiction'' |url= |location=New York |publisher=Plume |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Weyr |first=Thomas |date=1978 |title=''Reaching for Paradise: The Playboy Vision of America'' |url= |location=New York |publisher= New York Times Books |pages= |ref=harv }}