94.1

“Who Are You?” Article-interview by James Baron. New York Times, 13 February, Sec. 9 (“Style”), pp. 1, 7. In the wake of a national New York Times/CBS poll that asked 1,136 adults to describe themselves in one word, 26 “prominent people,” including Mailer, were asked the same question. Some of the others were former mayors of New York Ed Koch (“candid”) and David Dinkins (“caring”), Mary Gordon, novelist (“seeing”), David Lynch, film director (“confused”) and Camille Paglia, feminist social critic (“ambition”). Mailer’s answer: “Improvisational.” He continued, saying, “In a time when all ideologies…have significantly failed us as guides to a reasonable inner life, it helps to treat each situation before us as novel, just born, without guide or precedent.”