Martin Peretz, March 17, 1964

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters
142 Columbia Heights
Brooklyn 1, New York
March 17, 1964

Dear Marty,[1]

Thanks for your letter. I’m not sure I’m going to go into a ski cabin next year, for it proved expensive, and full of headaches this season.

I still have my nose deep in the serial and I’m not sure I ever want to write a novel this way again. For cumulative fatigue may get in the way of finishing the book properly. I hope not, I think I still haven’t lost the book, but I’m feeling wrung out, dull, and smoking too many cigarettes these days. Forgive the lugubrious tone—I think I’m still recovering from the Clay-Liston fight.[2] One of my secret dreams was to see Patterson and Liston have a great third fight.

Best for now,
Norman
This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Notes

  1. Editor-in-chief of The New Republic, Martin Peretz was a professor at Harvard when Mailer met him in the early 1960s.
  2. Mailer watched Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammad Ali, defeat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship in Miami on 25 February 1964.