Lipton’s Journal/February 22, 1955/682

The salesman has to sell—no matter what it is. He sells good as eagerly as evil—which explains the enigma of Collie Munshin[1] to me. He sells Elena,[2] he sells Eitel[3]—indeed Eitel gets close to him when Eitel has decided psychically to buy.



notes

  1. In The Deer Park, Carlyle “Collie” Munshin, the son-in-law of Herman Teppis, the head of Supreme Studios, is the unscrupulous producer best known for pirating the scripts of others.
  2. Elena Esposito is the lover and later wife of Charles Eitel in The Deer Park. Their love affair is one of Mailer’s finest fictional creations. Mailer based her character on his wife Adele.
  3. Charles Francis Eitel (I-tell is the pronunciation), the protagonist of The Deer Park, is a blacklisted film director, who names former communists to a congressional committee.