2002

Mailer begins work on a collection, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing (03.7), consisting of excerpts from his essays, interviews and other works on the publishing world, the psychology of the writerly life, and literary techniques, with an emphasis on the role of the unconscious.

In February, Jack Abbott commits suicide in prison. Mailer issues a statement saying that Abbott's life "was tragic from beginning to end".

In October, Gore Vidal and Mailer reprise Don Juan in Hell, joined by Norris and Lennon, in a benefit for the Provincetown Theater. Vidal, as the Devil, steals the show, and Mailer says his old friend was "almost as good as Charles Laughton in the role".

In December he caps a year of comment on the causes and effects of 9/11 with a long conversation on the topic with another old friend, Dotson Rader, published in the (London) Sunday Times Magazine.

• 

  Mailer in 2002.

• 

  Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal in Provincetown, 2002. Photo by Norris Church Mailer.