1984

Mailer visits Russia for the first time in March; returns with Norris in June.

In June, he receives an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Mercy College in White Plains, NY.

On 11 July, he is elected president of the PEN American Center for a two-year term.

Preceded by excerpts in Vanity Fair, Tough Guys Don't Dance (84.17), a murder mystery set in Provincetown, is published by Random House on 20 August. It also becomes a best seller and sells over a million paperback copies.

He is inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters on 7 December.

Begins work on his CIA novel, Harlot's Ghost (91.26).

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  NM by Irving Penn, 1984.

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  NM, c. 1985.