59.13

Advertisements for Myself. New York: Putnam’s, 6 November; London: Deutsch, October 1961 (see 61.15 for note on British edition). Miscellany, 532 pp., $5.

Original working title: “The Hip and the Square: A Miscellany.” Republished with preface by Mailer. New York: Berkley, December 1976 (76.16). Preface reprinted (minus first paragraph) as “An Advertisement Advertised” in 82.16. Dedication: “I dedicate this book to the memory of Anne Mailer Kessler (1889-1958) and to David Kessler and to my father Isaac Barnett (‘Barney’) Mailer.” Portions of this miscellany appeared in periodicals at approximately the same time the book was published, a tactic that Mailer used to herald most of his major books from 1959 on. Rpt: 59.12; all of the short stories appear in 67.11 and 82.19; several selections appear in 98.7 and 13.1. See 59.8a, 59.10, 59.14, 13.2, 242–258.

“ So Advertisements became the book in which I tried to separate my legitimate spiritual bile from my self-pity and maybe it was the hardest continuing task I had yet set myself. What aggravated every problem was that I was also trying to give up smoking, and the advertisements in this book, printed in italics, are testimony to the different way I was now obliged to use language. ” — Norman Mailer, 76.14

• 

  Cover of the first edition.

Bibliography

Reviews

• Davis, Robert Gorham (1960). "Norman Mailer and the Trap of Egotism". Story. 33 (spring): 117–119. Negative.
• Kazin, Alfred (November 26, 1959). "How Good is Norman Mailer?". Reporter. pp. 40–41. Positive. Rpt: Kazin (1962), Lucid (1971).
• Krim, Seymour (1960). "A Hungry Mental Lion". Evergreen Review (January–February): 175–185. Positive. See 61.23.
• Steiner, George (December 1961). "Naked but Not Dead". Encounter. pp. 67–70. Positive. Rpt: Lennon (1986).
• Tynan, Kenneth (November 18, 1959). "Review of Advertisements for Myself". Village Voice. Positive. Rpt: Wolf and Fancher (1962). See 56.1–56.17.
• Vidal, Gore (January 2, 1960). "The Norman Mailer Syndrome". Nation. pp. 13–16. Mixed. Rpt: Lucid (1971), Bloom (1986), Vidal (1993). See 60.3.

Essays

• Adams, Laura (1976). "Phase One: Advertisements for Myself". Existential Battles: The Growth of Norman Mailer. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. pp. 27–66.
• Baldwin, James (1961). "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy". Esquire. pp. 102–106. Rpt: Baldwin (1961), Lucid (1971), Braudy (1972). See 57.1.
• Castronovo, David (2004). "Norman Mailer as Midcentury Advertisement". New England Review. 24 (fall). Rpt: In Castronovo’s Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit: Books from the 1950s that Made American Culture, 99–109. New York: Continuum, 2004.
• Ehrlich, Robert (1978). Norman Mailer: The Radical as Hipster. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. pp. 3–19. ISBN 9780810811607.