91.43

“Mailer Gets to Talk Back to N.Y. Times.” Article by David Streitfeld. Washington Post, 30 October. Report on Mailer’s meeting with New York Times Book Review editor, Rebecca Sinkler, and Times managing editor, Joseph Lelyveld, on 28 October to seek a chance to reply to John Simon’s 29 September review of Harlot’s Ghost (91.26). Mailer was successful and his response (91.48) appeared on 17 November. A Times spokesman, William Adler, said Mailer’s piece “is unusual but I don’t believe it’s unprecedented. It’s in the context of a literary dialogue.” Simon said if he were running a book review, “I would publish whatever review I published and that would be it. If the author didn’t like it, tough.” Mailer had one word for the Times session: “transmogrificational.” See 91.14–91.16, 91.19.