1956

Mailer publishes 17 weekly columns in the Voice, the first 14 titled "Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers" (56.1–56.17, and the last three, "The Hip and the Square", from 11 January through 2 May, at which point he resigns from active participation because of editorial differences with his partners. He ends his contribution to the paper with an essay strongly affirming the merits of Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot.

In early May, "The Man Who Studied Yoga" (56.25), which Mailer conceived as the preface to a series of eight linked novels, is published in New Short Novels 2.

The Mailers spend the summer in Europe, visiting Spain, Germany (touring Buchenwald), Italy and Paris, where they are introduced to James Baldwin by Jean Malaquais.

In the fall, they move to Bridgewater, CT, buying a house near the home of William Styron. They also spend time with an English professor, John W. Aldridge, who becomes one of Mailer's most consistent critical supporters. Mailer begins to learn how to box from his father-in-law, Al Morales, a former professional boxer. Builds an orgone box, based roughly on the design of psychologist Wilhelm Reich, whose theories of sexual energy influence him.

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  NM in 1956.

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  NM at the Village Voice offices, 1956.