Richard Kluger, March 22, 1965: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:31, 7 April 2019

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

142 Columbia Heights

Brooklyn 1, New York

March 22, 1965

Dear Dick,^[1]

Thank you for your letter, which was a good one. There are no hard feelings. All you can ever ask of a book review editor is that he offers you a fair to good draw on the reviewer. And in advance I would have said Tom Wolfe was a fair choice. The New York Review [of Books] is the one I’m irritated at. Because [Robert B.] Silvers must have known (everyone else in New York did) that my work has been anathema to Philip Rahv for years. Here’s the list. I’m not very happy with it, and I’m not sure you’re doing the right thing. It’s the sort of poll that tends to reinforce a literary establishment. My opinions go into the hopper with Granville Hicks’—what does that accomplish? Since there are more Hicks, he thrives on this sort of poll and ultimately I perish. Perhaps not personally, i.e., my “stock” can remain high, but my power to influence opinion has to be diminished by setting up a College of Electors of this sort.

Yours sincerely,

Norman

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Notes

↑ Kluger was an editor at the literary supplement, Book Week. Mailer was responding, in part, to his request for a list of the books that most influenced him. Tom Wolfe (1931-), novelist and new journalist, wrote a negative review of An American Dream that appeared in Book Week on 14 March 1965. Philip Rahv (1908-1973), the literary critic, wrote his negative review for the 25 March 1965 number of the New York Review of Books, then and now edited by Robert B. Silvers (1929-). Granville Hicks (1901-1982) was the literary editor of The Saturday Review, where on 20 March 1965 he gave the novel a negative review, suggesting that it was a literary hoax. Mailer called him “predictable Hicks” in a review of Norman Podhoretz’s memoir, Making It, in Partisan Review, spring 1968.

[1] Kluger was an editor at the literary supplement, Book Week. Mailer was responding, in part, to his request for a list of the books that most influenced him. Tom Wolfe (1931-), novelist and new journalist, wrote a negative review of An American Dream that appeared in Book Week on 14 March 1965. Philip Rahv (1908-1973), the literary critic, wrote his negative review for the 25 March 1965 number of the New York Review of Books, then and now edited by Robert B. Silvers (1929-). Granville Hicks (1901-1982) was the literary editor of The Saturday Review, where on 20 March 1965 he gave the novel a negative review, suggesting that it was a literary hoax. Mailer called him “predictable Hicks” in a review of Norman Podhoretz’s memoir, Making It, in Partisan Review, spring 1968.

[1]

v t e Norman Mailer’s Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969
Introduction Timeline of Events Word Count Comparison Bibliography
1963	Gutierres-Olivos 09/18 Deutsch 10/15 Earney 10/15 Whittemore 10/15 Yaminishi 10/16 Morris 10/21 Deutsch 11/4 Earney 11/4 Naiman 11/5 Gwaltney 11/9 Yaminishi 11/26 Skellings 11/26 Susskind 11/26 Shoultz 12/11 Yaminishi 12/15 Knox 12/17 Gwaltney 12/20 Kleeman 12/20
1964	Carpenter 1/15 Bourjaily 1/16 Yaminishi 1/17 Breit 2/11 Knox 2/17 Schultz 2/17 Yaminishi 2/19 Gregory 3/16 Lea 3/17 Peretz 3/17 Deutsch 4/16 Mailer 4/17 Knox 4/19 Gwaltney 5/15 Carpenter 6/1 Casanova 6/2 Knox 6/2 Athill 7/5 Hamill 7/6 Yaminishi 7/7 Athill 8/21 Lucid 9/24 Carpenter 10/5 Deutsch 11/4 Whitby 12/15 Kemp 12/18 Knox 12/18 McLaughlin 12/18 Mangrum 12/21
1965	Yaminishi 1/27 Athill 2/25 Kluger 3/22 Athill 3/23 Earney 3/23 Epstein 3/25 Carpenter 3/25 Trilling 3/25 Trilling 4/06 Kaufmann 4/20 Aldridge 4/23 Mailer 4/23 Aldridge 6/8 Corrington 6/8 Shattuck 6/8 Trilling 6/8 Meixner 6/12 Trilling 7/14 Aldridge 8/17 Weiss 8/26
1966	Abel 2/28 Rubin 3/24 Wells 4/16 Abrams 9/24 Udoff 9/24 Weber 9/24 Mailer 9/25 Sternlicht 9/26
1969	Burnett, n.d.
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