07.28a

“Writers Take Out their Knives.” Article-interview Motoko Rich. New York Times. “Ideas and Trends,” 20 May, 3. Seven writers (Mailer, Christopher Buckley, Ann Patchett, Stephen King, Neal Pollack, Joyce Carol Oates and Jonathan Franzen) are asked to name some books in need of truncation. Mailer’s list: For Whom the Bell Tolls, U.S.A., Absalom, Absalom, The Grapes of Wrath, Look Homeward, Angel, Of Time and the River, The Web and the Rock, You Can’t Go Home Again, Some Came Running, Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, Beloved, The World According to Garp, and three of his own: The Executioner’s Song, Ancient Evenings, Harlot’s Ghost. See 91.31a.