Lipton’s Journal/Correspondence of Robert Lindner and Norman Mailer/July 20, 1954
| NORMAN MAILER’s Letters |
- To Norman Mailer
- July 20, 1954
Normancito:
Don’t tell me we’re not simpatico! I had hardly finished a letter to you when yours arrived. We were overjoyed to hear from you, but are now distressed to learn about your health. Have you considered returning for treatment? Or can you get what you need where you are? Please, man, take care—it’s important for everyone that you remain well—or at least well enough to get done what’s yours to do, including having a good time.
As for me, mysteriously, I have had little or no further trouble, lip-wise or hive-y. Whether the blasted thing has run its course, or my psyche has undergone some occult kind of reorganization, I don’t know. In any case, I’m eating almost everything (although I remain leery of—and avoid—tomatoes, berries and cheese) without ill effect. Physically, then, I’m in pretty good shape. Except for heart trouble, cancer, leukemia, and tuberculosis I have fewer complains these days than I had when I last wrote. Mentally, I continue dull. Although I’ve read a lot—much. An occasional idea, yes—but nothing that sticks. Nevertheless—and I think only you can understand this—I feel yeasty. Stuff is moiling and brewing deep down. Occasionally, with what reminds me of a bubble’s burst in a cauldron of some thick liquid, an etwas[1] (sentence, thought, vagrant phrase) rises to the surface, breaks, then settles—So maybe there’s a thing happening that will start me soon on the book.
Your news about Deer Park is warming and exciting both. When I got the catalogue two weeks ago, I observed there was no announcement of your book, I worried about what had happened. Your letter calms—apparently all has ended well. As for the orgy scene, I agree its elimination is artistically necessary and that the book will profit from the deletion.
Parenthetically, the “Jet-Propelled Couch”[2] will be in Harper’s in abbreviation in December and January. Ivan [Von Auw] concluded the arrangements last week. We think they’ve done a fine editorial job and its appearance there will help The Fifty-Minute Hour.
We leave for Long Island on July 31st. Please copy this address and phone number and put it where you’ll be reminded of me (us) constantly. May I suggest Adele’s[3] beautiful butt? [ . . . ]
To both of you from all here, much love,
- Your
- Lippy
- the labile lover of labia
- Your
notes
- ↑ Something.
- ↑ A chapter from Linder’s collection, The Fifty-Minute Hour, appeared in the December 1954 Harper’s.
- ↑ Adele Morales (1925 – 2015), who he married in April 1954, was Mailer’s second wife. The mother of his daughters Danielle (b. 1957), and Elizabeth Anne (b. 1959), she separated from Mailer in early 1961 a few months after he stabbed her with a penknife, just missing her heart. He pled guilty to felonious assault and was given a suspended sentence. They divorced in 1962.
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