04.13

“The Election and America’s Future.” New York Review of Books, 4 November, 6–17. Mailer is one of 14 individuals, including Russell Baker, Anthony Lewis, Thomas Powers, and Garry Wills, who contributed to this symposium. His 1200-word contribution, pp. 13–14, is divided into two parts. The first deals with the spiritual condition of the U.S., a “guilty nation,” and why 9/11 “was the jackpot” for President Bush and Karl Rove, concluding with advice for John Kerry in the presidential debates. The second part, written after the debates, is more optimistic, but ends with the lines: “Perhaps it is no longer Jesus or Allah who oversees our fate but the turn of the Greek gods to take another run around the track. When it comes to destiny, they were the first, after all, to conceive of the ironies.” Rpt: 13.1.