88.1

“A Conversation with Norman Mailer.” By Barry H. Leeds. Connecticut Review 10 (spring), 1–15. In a revealing interview with the author of the first book-length study of Mailer’s work (The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer, New York University Press, 1969), Mailer discusses a number of topics surrounding the violence of modern life: AIDS, cancer, the Bernard Goetz case, prize-fighting, the police and criminals. Further, he discusses several writers: Mario Puzo, Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, Ken Kesey, Joan Didion and Harry Crews. Mailer also gives his fullest answer to the question of why he abandoned the trilogy of which Ancient Evenings (83.18) was to have been the first volume. Finally, he discusses moviemaking, his own and Clint Eastwood’s. Rpt: 88.6.