89.10

“Harlot’s Ghost: An Excerpt.” Story 37 (Autumn), 10-13. Advance excerpt from novel of same title (91.26). In a note prefacing this excerpt (which erroneously notes that Mailer was a chemistry major at Harvard), Mailer is quoted on the importance of winning the Story college short story contest in 1941: “Obviously it was one of the most important experiences of my life up to then. In those days, for a young writer to be published in Story was enough to give you the beginning of a real certainty that perhaps you were meant to be a writer.” Rpt: This excerpt (taken from the conclusion of chapter 1, part 1, “Early Years, Early Training,” of “The Alpha Manuscript”) describes a lunch at “21.” In the final version, Mailer makes several small but significant changes. See 41.1.