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| Norman Mailer: Works and Days |
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A new edition of Norman Mailer: Works and Days is at worksdays.projectmailer.net. This page in the new edition → |
| Frontmatter |
| Preface • Lennon Introduction • Lucas Introduction • Acknowledgments and Appreciations |
| Bibliographies |
| First Editions • Key Texts • Bibliographies • Biographies • Criticism • Cultural Backgrounds |
| Works |
| Works Index • NM’s Introductions • The Big Bite • Mailer for Mayor • Abbott Affair |
| Days |
| Days Index • Important Dates |
| Index |
| Index of Names • Works Categories • Days Categories |
 Books •  Projects |
“Mailer, Norman.” In Twentieth Century Authors: First Supplement, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz, 628-29. New York: H.W. Wilson. Autobiographical entry. Mailer makes a number of memorable statements in this sketch, which he wrote in December 1952, including his statement that “the peculiar juxtaposition of a Brooklyn culture and a Harvard culture have had the most external importance I could name in making me want to write.” He also states: “I have long suffered from an inability to combine the best of two quite separate attitudes about the writing of novels; briefly, the romantic and the realist.” Finally, he notes that “the virtue I should most like to achieve as a writer is to be genuinely disturbing,” and to “serve as the gadfly to complacency, institutions, and the dead weight of public taste.”
