An American Dream Expanded/Timeline of Events, 1962–1966

Appendix III

Timeline of Events, 1962-1966

1962

                                                            30 January: NM’s first volume of poems, Deaths for the Ladies (and Other Disasters), is published by Putnam’s

                                                            Late March: NM divorces his second wife, Adele Morales, in Juarez, Mexico.

                                                            April: NM marries Lady Jean Campbell and they move into his apartment at 142 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn.

                                                            Mid-August: NM submits the first (of 14) columns, titled “The Big Bite,” for publication in the November Esquire.

                                                            18 August: NM’s third daughter, Kate, born to Jean Campbell.

                                                            22 September: NM debates William F. Buckley, Jr. on “The Role of the Right Wing” before an audience of 4,000 in Chicago.

                                                            25 September: NM covers the heavyweight prizefight between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston in Chicago.

                                                            October-November: Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union removes missile sites from Cuba after the U.S. threatens a military attack.

                                                            Late fall: NM separates from Jean Campbell.

                                                            December: NM publishes the first of six columns of reflections on Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim in Commentary.

                                                            20 December: “An Open Letter to JFK from Norman Mailer” appears in the Village Voice.

1963

                                                            January-February: Playboy publishes in two parts the NM-Buckley debate.

                                                            February: “Ten Thousand Words a Minute,” NM’s account of the first Patterson-Liston fight, is published in Esquire.

                                                            March: NM meets Beverly Bentley.

1963

                                                            24 March: NM speaks on existentialism and psychoanalysis at Harvard.

                                                            31 May: NM presents “An Existential Evening” at Carnegie Hall, discussing the FBI, President Kennedy and Communism with the audience.

                                                            Summer: “The First Presidential Paper,” NM’s essay on heroes and leaders, is published in Dissent.

                                                            July-August: NM and Beverly drive cross-country and back, stopping in Arkansas, Las Vegas (where they see Liston defeat Patterson for the second time), San Francisco and Georgia.

                                                            28 August: Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Washington Monument during the Civil Rights March on the Capital.

                                                            Late Summer: Scott Meredith becomes NM’s literary agent and helps broker the sale of an unwritten novel to Dial Press and Dell Books. NM proposes and Esquire editor Harold Hayes agrees to the serial publication of this novel in the magazine, January through August 1964.

                                                            29 September: NM’s review of Victor Lasky’s J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth appears in Book Week (N.Y. Herald Tribune).

                                                            Mid-October: NM turns in the first of eight installments of the novel to Esquire.

                                                            8 November: Putnam’s publishes The Presidential Papers, a collection of assorted prose focused on J.F.K.

                                                            Mid-November: The December Esquire containing NM’s final “Big Bite” column is published. NM announces in it that he will write a novel called An American Dream, in eight installments, beginning in the January 1964 issue.

                                                            22 November: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Vice President Johnson is sworn in as President.

                                                            27 November: NM begins working on the third installment.

                                                            Mid-December: The January issue of Esquire containing the first installment appears.

                                                            16 November: After obtaining a Mexican divorce from Jean Campbell, NM marries Beverly Bentley in New York.

                                                            26 December: NM contributes to a New York Review of Books symposium on J.F.K.

1964

                                                            Mid-January: The fourth installment of the novel is completed.

                                                            Late January: NM debates William F. Buckley, Jr. in New York on a taped television program.

                                                            29 January: American premiere of “Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

                                                            3 February: The Beatles arrive in America.

                                                            11 February: The fifth installment is completed.

                                                            25 February: NM is in the audience in Miami when Muhammad Ali defeats Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship.

                                                            17 March: Beverly gives birth to Michael Burks Mailer, NM’s first son, at about the same time that he completes the sixth installment.

                                                            20 April: The seventh installment is completed.

                                                            Late May: Warner Brothers buys an option on the film rights to An American Dream.

                                                            Early June: The final long installment of the novel is completed. The Mailers go to Provincetown where NM will revise the Esquire version for book publication.

                                                            2 July: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act against discrimination.

                                                            Mid-July: NM break off work on the revision to the novel to cover the Republican Convention in San Francisco. His account, “In the Red Light,” appears in the November Esquire.

                                                            7 August: The U.S. Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing the President to use military force in Vietnam.

                                                            September: The Free Speech movement begins at the University of California at Berkeley.

                                                            12 October: An advertisement for An American Dream in book form appears in Publishers’ Weekly and gives a January 1965 publication date.

                                                            3 November: Johnson elected President.

                                                            20 December: Working on the Dial Press galleys, NM completes a second revision of the novel.

1965

                                                            Early January: NM testifies on behalf of William Burroughs’s novel, Naked Lunch, at its Boston obscenity trial.

                                                            27 January: NM writes to his Japanese translator that Warner Brothers has purchased the film rights to the novel. It sells for $200,000.

                                                            21 February: Malcolm X is assassinated.

                                                            March 1965: U.S. troops arrive in force in Vietnam, escalating the War.

                                                            14 March: Tom Wolfe’s negative review of the novel appears in Book Week (Washington Post).

                                                            15 March: Official publication date of An American Dream by Dial Press.

                                                            19 March: “The Big Comeback of Norman Mailer,” a positive review by John W. Aldridge, appears in Life. NM pays to reprint the heart of the review in the spring number of Partisan Review to “accompany” Elizabeth Hardwick’s negative review.

                                                            27 March: The novel rises to number four on the bestseller list of the Chicago Daily News.

                                                            1 April: NM travels to Alaska for a four-day visit, speaking at the University of Alaska. He uses his impressions for his 1967 novel, Why Are We in Vietnam?

                                                            11 April: The novel rises to number eight on the bestseller list of the New York Times Book Review.

                                                            20 April: NM arrives in London to promote the British edition of An American Dream, published by Andre Deutsch on 26 April.

                                                            21 May: NM speaks out against the Vietnam War at the Berkeley campus of the University of California.

                                                            15 July: NM speaks at a Harvard teach-in against the Vietnam War.

                                                            Late July: NM travels to Puerto Rico for the Jose Torres-Tom McNeeley prizefight and meets with Muhammad Ali.

                                                            6 August: Voting Right Act of 1965 signed into law by President Johnson.

1965

                                                            11 August: Race riots break out in Watts, Los Angeles.

                                                            Fall: NM contributes to a Partisan Review symposium, “On Vietnam.”

                                                            24 September: Brock Brower’s biographical article on NM appears in Life.

                                                            29 September: National Endowment for the Arts signed into law by President Johnson.

                                                            Late December: NM addresses the Modern Language Association meeting in Chicago on the American novel. His talk is published in the March 1966 issue of Commentary.

1966

                                                            March: The Dell paperback edition of An American Dream is published.

                                                            10 March: NM’s second son, Stephen McLeod Mailer, is born to Beverly.

                                                            June: NM purchases a house at 565 Commercial Street in Provincetown.

                                                            August: The first stage version of NM’s 1955 novel, The Deer Park, with Beverly Bentley as Lulu Meyers, is presented at Act IV, a Provincetown theater.

                                                            26 August: The film version of An American Dream premiers.

                                                            28 August: NM’s review of Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgment, an analysis of the Warren Commission Report on J.F.K.’s assassination, appears in

                                                            Book Week (Washington Post).

                                                            29 August: Dial Press publishes Cannibals and Christians, NM’s third volume of collected prose and poetry.

                                                            29 October: National Organization for Women established.