85.3

“Mailer Admits Someone’s Better.” Article by Brian Petersen. Grand Forks (North Dakota) Herald, 22 March, Sec. A, pp. 1, 8. Account of the 21 March University of North Dakota Writers Conference on narrative. Mailer, Alex Haley, Amy Clampitt and Jorie Graham were the speakers. Mailer said his instincts told him to speed up the dialogue in The Executioner’s Song (79.14) until he saw that it could not be improved. “I realized God is a better novelist than the novelist.”