Lipton’s Journal/January 3, 1955/187

We may all have a social image of ourselves, close to the despised image of ourselves. Thus, I always see myself as the sweet clumsy anxious to please Middle-class Jewish boy, and socially I admire poise, coolness, manners, elegance. Many of our relations with people consist entirely of our admiration for their social face. Those are the relations where I remain fixed in certain kinds of habit and speech and never can express myself. As it used to be with Ted Amussen,^[1] Stan Rinehart,^[2] John Aldridge,^[3] and many others.

notes

↑ An editor at Rinehart and Co. for both Mailer and Lindner, Theodore Amussen (1915-1988) was instrumental in Mailer signing a contract for The Naked and the Dead.
↑ President of the firm of Rinehart and Co., Stanley Rinehart Jr. (1897 – 1969) wrote a letter comparing The Naked and the Dead to the work of Hemingway and Dos Passos that was printed on the dust jacket of the first edition. But in late November 1954, with an ad for The Deer Park already published, Rinehart cancelled the novel’s publication after Mailer refused to cut a sexually explicit scene. Later, Mailer sued and received the remainder of his advance for the novel.
↑ A prolific literary critic and professor at the University of Michigan, Aldridge (1922-2007) had a warm relationship with Mailer for several decades. He gave thoughtful and generally positive reviews to most of Mailer’s important books, but cared little for The Deer Park.

[1] An editor at Rinehart and Co. for both Mailer and Lindner, Theodore Amussen (1915-1988) was instrumental in Mailer signing a contract for The Naked and the Dead.

[2] President of the firm of Rinehart and Co., Stanley Rinehart Jr. (1897 – 1969) wrote a letter comparing The Naked and the Dead to the work of Hemingway and Dos Passos that was printed on the dust jacket of the first edition. But in late November 1954, with an ad for The Deer Park already published, Rinehart cancelled the novel’s publication after Mailer refused to cut a sexually explicit scene. Later, Mailer sued and received the remainder of his advance for the novel.

[3] A prolific literary critic and professor at the University of Michigan, Aldridge (1922-2007) had a warm relationship with Mailer for several decades. He gave thoughtful and generally positive reviews to most of Mailer’s important books, but cared little for The Deer Park.

[1]

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