80.1

“Mailer on Gilmore.” Interview by Kevin Bezner. Washington Book Review, January–February, 2–8. Excellent interview on The Executioner’s Song (79.14), in which Mailer discusses his narrative stance; Gilmore’s character and appeal; the source for his title and the “old prison rhyme” prefacing the book; Joan Didion’s review in the New York Times Book Review (7 November 1979); and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which Mailer calls “beautifully written. It had to be because I don’t think that the two guys that Truman had in the book were terribly interesting.” Capote commented on Mailer and the “nonfiction novel” in the preface to Music for Chameleons (New York: Random House). Rpt: San Francisco Review of Books, February, 6–9, 26–27, 31. See 79.1, 80.10.