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

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). 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.

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). 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 Glad- stein 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” (288-89). And, in “Hemingway, Mailer,

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). 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). ‘’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). 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 “unim- peachable 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

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.

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

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.

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

echoes the ‘’Playboy’’ stance on working hard to enjoy the products of capital- ism with a female companion.

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). 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). Why would ‘’Playboy’’ editors admit this in the same announcement that begins over a

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). The “most transparently ambitious author of his era,” Mailer was a prolific author, social commentator, and cultural provocateur (McGrath). 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). 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

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). 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). But according to one of ‘’Playboy’s’’ executive editors, Arthur Kretchmer, Mailer was “a long-run investment” (Manso 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). 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

<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) </blockquote>

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). 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). Here, Mailer hints at Hefner’s subtle allure. His unassuming demeanor makes him a surprising candidate for the head of the

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). 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). 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.

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

‘’Politics of Playboy’’, panelists “primarily fixated on inane debates” (Pitzulo 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).

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  

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). 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). ‘’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.

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

Kretchmer classified ‘’Playboy’’’s “dynamics” with Mailer as “interesting” because ‘’Playboy’’ did not publish his fiction “for direct sales” (Manso 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). 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.

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)”

(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 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

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.

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). 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

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

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.