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Letters

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

In this letter to fan Susan Abrams, Mailer is referring to the film version of the novel. Friends told him it was awful.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

565 Commercial Street

Provincetown, Massachusetts

September 24, 1966

Dear Susan,

Just a line to say hello. An American Dream is awful. No excuses I’m afraid, I just sold it. As for the recommendation, of course I knew.

Best, etc.,

Norman Mailer

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Udoff was acquainted with both Mailer and Mann Rubin.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

565 Commercial Street

Provincetown, Massachusetts

September 24, 1966

Dear Yale,

Thanks for your letter. Tell Mann Rubin I’d like to see his original screenplay of An American Dream in order to get a better idea of how and where Warner’s fucked it.

Best, etc.,

Norman Mailer

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Weber’s interview with Mailer appeared in the March 1965 issue of Books, the literary supplement of the New York Post. It is one of only a few interviews he gave on the novel before it was published. Mailer did not know anything at the time about how Warner Brothers intended to film the novel and speculated in the interview on whether Frank Sinatra could play Stephen Rojack.  He also discussed the possibility of making An American Dream the first volume of a quartet in the manner of The Alexandria Quartet (1957-1960) of Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), and commented on how An American Dream had its roots in his November 1960 Esquire essay on J.F.K., “Superman Comes to the Supermarket.” On the advice of friends, Mailer has never seen the film version of the novel. The Deer Park was turned into a play by Mailer and ran from 31 January to 21 May 1967 at the Off-Broadway Theatre de Lys.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

565 Commercial Street

Provincetown, Massachusetts

September 24, 1966

Dear Nancy,

I’m sorry to take so long to answer, but I haven’t gone near my mail in two months, and now I’m hacking my way through.  It’s the only way to stay alive. As for the film An American Dream, I haven’t seen it, but then I hardly suppose you have to.  The only thing is, I wouldn’t do an interview because I think if you sell something to Hollywood you’re one of the whores in the deal, and a whore shouldn’t complain about other whores, for that’s the basis of all comedy, so we’ll leave it at that. I’ll be back in New York in November, and a few of us are going to produce The Deer Park Off-Broadway. We were doing it up here this summer. Maybe we can do an interview then. Incidentally, although I think it can’t be easy on you, I’m glad you’re off the Post. You’re much too skillful an interviewer, let alone a writer, to work for that “schlockeria.”

Love and all,

Norman Mailer

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

The first stage version of The Deer Park, in two acts, was presented at Act IV, a Provincetown Theater, in August 1966, with Beverly Bentley as Lulu Myers. Cannibals and Christians, Mailer’s third miscellany, was published by Dial on 29 August 1966. Beverly gave birth to Stephen McLeod Mailer, their second son, on 10 March 1966. Basil was the son of Louis and Moos.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

565 Commercial Street

Provincetown, Massachusetts

September 24, 1966

Dear Louis and Moos,

I haven’t written in ages. Please forgive me for not answering your fine letters, but this summer’s been unbelievable. I haven’t worked so hard in years. I got going at a great rate on a new novel and then just about the time I was half way through, everything in the scheme of things diverted me over to an old adaptation of The Deer Park, which I rewrote and changed from a five-hour play to a two-hour play. We did it up here in Provincetown in a theater Beverly helped to start (she is, by the way, a superb actress—woe is me—I’m not used to other talent in the family), and the play turned out well enough to be moved to New York. So we’re going to put it in on Off-Broadway this winter and if all goes well, it might be exciting, indeed. I have some hopes at any rate. As for the rest, all is well. Mother’s recovered completely from the operation, which proved, of course, not to be necessary—when will people finally realize that medicine exists first for the sake of doctors and their beastly hospitals. Cannibals and Christians came out and, to my surprise, received fairly good reviews. If Dad hasn’t taken care of it, I’m going to make certain a copy gets to you. As for the boys, Michael is all box-office, prima donna, narcissistic, brilliant, spoiled, electric, frighteningly sexy, a complete self-starter, and Steve all attention and reaction and soft smiles and chuckles and fun. They’re going to make a great pair, knock on wood, as my mother would say. As for the movie, An American Dream, don’t ask. An absolute disaster. My only consolation is that I had nothing to do with the makings of it, except for the tarty action of taking a large sum of money in sale from a large movie studio, for which I had no respect.

Give my best to Basil, Beverly sends love,

Norman Mailer

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Sanford Sternlicht, an English professor at New York State University College at Oswego, wanted Mailer’s opinion of the film version.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

565 Commercial Street

Provincetown, Massachusetts

September 24, 1966

Dear Sandy,

Just a line to tell you that we may be in Provincetown Christmas week, for we own a home here now, but if we’re in New York, we’ll look forward to seeing you. You write, “We have as not yet seen An American Dream and find it difficult to imagine it confined to the screen.” Yes indeed, Sir, when you see it, you may find it difficult to imagine.

Best,

Norman Mailer

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Mailer’s story “The Greatest Thing in the World” won Story magazine’s national college contest and was published there by Burnett in November 1941, marking the beginning of Mailer’s literary career. His undated letter (probably written in 1969) prefaces a selection from An American Dream describing the murder of Deborah by Rojack that was published in Burnett’s 1970 anthology, This is My Best: In the Third Quarter of the Century. Mailer’s letter is perhaps his most considered and perceptive comment on the novel.

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

Dear Whit,

Sometimes it seems useful to think of two kinds of novels—novels of manners, and modern explosive surrealistic novels in which the very notion of society, let alone manners, is bulldozed away in order to see what strange skeletons of fish and what buried treasure comes up in the ore. Out of my own work I suppose Why Are We in Vietnam? would most satisfy the latter category, and An American Dream might prove for some to be my most substantial attack on the problem of writing a novel of manners. They are hard novels to do well. Now that we are approaching the end of the seventh decade of the twentieth century they are becoming novels which are almost impossible to do well. The old totemistic force of manners, the old totemistic belief that breaching a manner inspired a curse has been all but lost in the avalanche of social deterioration which characterizes our era. Yet what can appear more attractive and sinister to us than a tea ceremony at the edge of a cliff. So I often think An American Dream is my best book. I tried for more in this novel than anywhere else and hence was living for a while with themes not easily accessible to literary criticism, not even to examination. The passage I choose now is not obligatorily the best thousand words in the work, but comes from the latter part of the first chapter and therefore offers few discomforts of orientation to the reader, and no demand on me for a synopsis of preceding events. Perhaps it may also serve to illumine the fine nerve of dread back of every good manner. Manner is the mandarin of mood, and in the shattering of every mood is an existential breath—does laughter or the murderous next ensue?

Yours,

Norman Mailer