76.5

Some Honorable Men: Political Conventions, 1960-1972. Boston: Little, Brown, 1 April. Nonfiction narrative, 499 pp., $12.50.

Dedication and acknowledgment: “To the memory of my father; In particular appreciation—Willie Morris, Midge Decter, Tom Griffith, Ralph Graves, Jack Newcombe, Molly Malone Cook, Mary Oliver, Suzanne Nye.” Discarded title: “Superman, Old Sock, Chicago and the Godfather.” Along with a new preface, this collection contains four previously published narratives on political conventions: “Superman Comes to the Supermarket” (60.9); “In the Red Light” (64.20); Miami and the Siege of Chicago (68.25); and St. George and the Godfather (72.17). Mailer quotes from the preface to 76.5 in the foreword to 98.7. See 73.35, 74.7, 92.10, 96.8, 97.1.

“ …in the years from 1960 to 1972 there was some easy marriage between my literary desires and my ability to perceive a fair amount of what was happening in those clouds of moral ambiguity where politics itself existed. So it may be right to put these four pieces together now into a book. They may even justify my confidence that the world (not the techniques but the world) of fiction can be brought to the facts of journalism. ” — Mailer, 76.5

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  Cover of the first edition.