Lipton’s Journal/January 26, 1955/286

Dialogue: Yesterday, Hiram Haydn^[1] called me and in his Abe Lincoln voice started to felicitate me on the Putnam deal.

Haydn: Congratulations, boy, you made it.
Mailer: You mean, they made it.
Haydn: (Pause) You’ll have to forgive me, Norman. My manners are a little off today.

It was wonderful. A year ago I would have gone on for five minutes about how lucky I was, and how pleased, and I would have tried to show what a nice modest guy I am, all the while throwing shit on myself, and on The Deer Park.

note

↑ A prominent figure in the postwar New York literary world, and longtime editor of The American Scholar, Haydn (1907-1973) was an editor at Random House when it turned down The Deer Park.

[1] A prominent figure in the postwar New York literary world, and longtime editor of The American Scholar, Haydn (1907-1973) was an editor at Random House when it turned down The Deer Park.

[1]