84.23b

“Taming of a Tough Guy.” Article-interview by Vicki Mays. Syndicated Features Limited (London), mid-October. This five-page piece was presumably published in the U.K., but the publication has not been located. Mailer talks about Tough Guys Don’t Dance (84.17), The Naked and the Dead (48.2), and The Executioner’s Song (79.14), and the way the media has depicted him: “When I read things about me I am always struck by how far away from me they are. It doesn’t mean they are not accurate but my actions always seem so bizarre in print because the inner connections are not there. I seem to extraordinarily eccentric.” He says he is reluctant to write his own autobiography: “It has got to be accurate and that means I have got to go back and check what happened.” He added, “Also, it would mean a total surrender to self-absorption.”