98.18

“At the Point of My Pen.” In Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction. Edited by Will Blythe, 3–4. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998. Mailer leads of this collection of essays by 26 writers, including Rick Bass, Robert Stone, Richard Ford, and Jayne Anne Phillips. He retells the story about what Jean Malaquais told him about continuing as a writer even though it was torture: “The only time I know the truth,” Malaquais said, “is when it reveals itself at the point of my pen.” Mailer finds this answer to be “incontestably true.” Rpt: 13.1.