The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/“A Series of Tragicomedies”: Mailer’s Letters on The Deer Park, 1954–55: Difference between revisions

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 Just a shortie to tell you what a good time we had, and to let you know that there’s no news on the big thing yet. I’ve submitted it [''The Deer Park''] simultaneously to Knopf and Random House<ref>After Rinehart rejected ''DP'', it was submitted to six publishing houses before it was accepted by the seventh, G. P. Putnam’s. NM liked the chief executive, Walter Minton, who reminded him of a general, and remained with Putnam’s
-through 1967. NM recounts the saga of ''DP' in “The Mind of an Outlaw” (''Esquire'', November 1959), which was reprinted as “The Last Draft of ''The Deer Park''” in ''AFM'' 228–267.</ref> (please don’t mention Knopf, nor for that matter that I’m in the act of changing publishers) and in a funny way I’m hoping that both houses don’t want the book with equal enthusiasm–, mainly because I had to use such pressure to make them both agree to the simultaneous business that it’s going to leave me with an enemy when I turn one down. I’ll let you know as soon as there is news. Maybe by next Monday.
+through 1967. NM recounts the saga of ''DP'' in “The Mind of an Outlaw” (''Esquire'', November 1959), which was reprinted as “The Last Draft of ''The Deer Park''” in ''AFM'' 228–267.</ref> (please don’t mention Knopf, nor for that matter that I’m in the act of changing publishers) and in a funny way I’m hoping that both houses don’t want the book with equal enthusiasm–, mainly because I had to use such pressure to make them both agree to the simultaneous business that it’s going to leave me with an enemy when I turn one down. I’ll let you know as soon as there is news. Maybe by next Monday.
 My inner life continues with much stimulation. I’ve gotten on to something in advertising which I believe is pretty big. It’s the old thing I discovered from Lipton’s<ref>Or tea, another name for marijuana, which NM smoked from the early 50s through the 60s before stopping in the 70s. During this period he compiled a 100,000-word journal, titled “Lipton’s,” which records his observations before, during, and after using the
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 Dear Lubby,<ref>Adeline Lubell Naiman (b. 1925): A college friend of NM’s sister, Barbara, at Radcliffe, Lubell was a junior editor at Little, Brown in 1946 when she heard about NM’s novel from his sister. In January 1946, even before he was discharged, she wrote to him asking to see a
-rough draft. In September, NM sent her 184 pages and she told her superiors it would be “the greatest novel to come out of WWII” (''MLT'' 102).</ref>
+rough draft. In September, NM sent her 184 pages and she told her superiors it would be “the greatest novel to come out of WWII” (''[[85.13|MLT]]'' 102).</ref>
 You’re wrong. I’m not angry at all, and I’m not hurt — mainly because there was neither malice nor venom in your reactions. Only love. That’s true, and what more can one ask from one’s friends. As a matter of fact while I would quarrel here and there with some of your specific reactions, I think you hit the book well — at least it expresses very well what I feel about the book when I’m down on it. There are times when I think it’s very good, there are times when I think I failed completely. And when I do, I think less articulately along the lines you criticized.
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 Love,<br />Norm
+==126. To Robert Lindner==
+E. 55th Street, New York, NY<br />Friday, December 31, 1954
+Dear Bob, in fact, Dear Dear Bob,
+Happy New Year. And what a year this new one is going to be.
+I’ve decided to send you one-half of the journal, my carbon. Please keep it in some safe place. And as I add to it, I’ll send you more. The part you haven’t read starts on page 19. And I think it carries along much of what I had before, and expands it.
+Incidentally, try not to read it critically. That is, don’t pick out such and such items as good, others as bad, etc. I’m putting it all down because I want the record. As I read it over, there is hardly a note which could not be improved, or indeed expanded into an essay. So, the thing is very crude. But I don’t want to stop to polish now. And I want the wild with what is less wild because some of the wild ones become less wild as I expand them subsequently. Viz the saint-psychopath thing. Essentially I started it by saying, Saints and psychopaths are brothers.<ref>The idea, which derives from NM’s reading of Soren Kierkegaard’s discussion of the relationship between the criminal and religious temperaments in
+''Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric'' (1843), has been discussed by NM in several contexts. NM also remembers reading Kierkegaard’s ''Either/Or'' (1843). In the mid-1960s he planned but never completed a collection of previously published work titled ''The Saint and the Psychopath''. He did write a preface, however, which he includes in ''[[72.7|EE]]'' 209–211, that opens as follows: “Many years ago I wished to write a book called ''The Saint and the Psychopath'' and in time that book swelled to such proportions in my mind that I thought of a magnum
+opus to bear the monumental name: ''A Psychology of the Orgy''. Ah, my ''Psychology of the Orgy'' reduced itself to the dimensions of an essay. ‘The White Negro’ came out of these titles and ambitions and those years of immersion in marijuana.” NM’s dialogues with Lindner, his experiments with sex and marijuana, his exposure to jazz and the ''demimonde'' of Greenwich Village contributed to his idea of the hipster, and also to his theology of a limited God locked in struggle with the Devil with humankind as a third, co-equal force.</ref> But, by now, I feel I’m pushing it into a new view of personality.
+If you don’t have much time, and want to read the homo-erotic corollary, it is in Note 155. If you have time, I suggest coming to it naturally.
+Brother, one thing. You must suspend your caution or we’ll get nowhere. So much of your thought is now in mine. Truly I’m not competing with you. Don’t look at me that way in my relations with you — it’s beneath us. I send you these notes because deep in me I feel that you’re the only person who can understand me right now intellectually, just as Adele is the only woman who can understand me intuitively. Which is why the two of you are so drawn to each other and so jealous of each other. (Don’t forget you called her the Peruvian Yenta.)
+I’m mailing the blurb to Dudley Frasier.<ref>Lindner’s editor at Rinehart.</ref> I would have made it bigger, but truly, Bob, I couldn’t. You can go so very far that some day you’ll look back on ''Fifty Minute Hour'' as one of your last stands or retreats before the big kickoff.
+I’ll try to make the flight for the 13th.
+Answer this at your leisure. Unless something goes wrong, we’ll be skiing from the Second of Jan. to the Fifth or Sixth or Seventh.
+Much love,<br />Norm
+P.S. Don’t forget your depression at reaching forty. That was you telling yourself that you haven’t gone far enough.
+==127. To William Styron==
+E. 55th Street, New York, NY<br />February 4, 1955
+Dear Bill,
+I made a resolve which I almost broke for you not to write any letters for a month in order to get some work done. What happened were a series of tragicomedies with ''The Deer Park'' which brought me in eight lightning weeks from radical realism to radical mysticism. And several bows to Kafka en route. What happened was that Stanley Rinehart who always hated it, finally erupted when the book was in page proof, and demanded that I take out six lines. I refused, and he fired me outright. So I went to other houses, six of them,<ref>There were seven, if Rinehart is included. The other six: Random House, Knopf, Simon and Schuster, Harpers, Scribner’s, and Harcourt Brace.</ref> the six best, and gave them all schizophrenia because half the people in the house loved it, the other half hated it. (Bill Raney who loves it told me he can’t even stand to talk to people who don’t like it.) The moral is: When you write a novel, don’t fuck around with love. Finally, Ted Purdy at G. P. Putnam took it, and it’s going to come out in August or September<ref>''DP'' was published October 14, 1955.</ref> and they’re going to do it big, and I don’t have to delete anything. So, for once, a victory. But you can’t imagine the madness of the trip. The lawyer at Knopf who wanted me to take everything else out of the book complimented me on the six lines Stan Rinehart fired me for — the lawyer said in more or less direct quote: “Now why don’t you get around the obscenity problem all the time the way you do here.” And of course to the hipnoscenti the book isn’t the least bit obscene. At any rate, due to the twentieth century speeding-up-of-communication-processes books now have the chance to have publishing histories before publication.
+I’m delighted that Moravia is coming here, and as you know I’ll be equally delighted to help him any way I can. As a matter of fact I caught myself going through my rather incomplete list of bars, pads, and general hangouts which he might find interesting. But what with friends and all, maybe I can think of a place or two he might not otherwise come across. So do give him my regards, and tell him that it’s a future pleasure for us.
+At the moment there are of course no copies of ''The Deer Park'', but in a couple of weeks I think I’ll be able to get one of the manuscript copies to send to you. If you’d care to keep it, it’s yours. For Moravia, perhaps I’d better just wait until there’s a hard cover book which is certainly pleasanter to read. By the way, the same applies for you. If you’d rather wait a few months, Bill, I’ll be delighted to send it to you in book form. So, either way on that.
+Vance’s address is Aida 49, San Angel Inn, Mexico D.F. Actually, he’s away now for a couple of months in Oaxaca, digging for Indian relics, but I’m certain any mail sent to him at the above address would be forwarded. I have the feeling (off the record) that both he and Tina are approaching some sort of focus-crisis in their lives. By which I don’t mean divorce or drink — as a matter of fact quite possibly the contrary — but as we’ve all noticed in ourselves and in our friends there’s something about turning thirty which acts as a catalyst. It’s as if you can’t keep on quite the same way you were before. The enthusiasms which carry you through the twenties just seem to peter out. Anyway, although Vance and Tina never spoke directly on these lines, I had the feeling that each in their subtle way were preparing to change, and one outer expression of that is that Vance has become just hipped completely on archaeology which I must say on my slight understanding of him I had never seen as one of his developments. Maybe that’s because I don’t understand the appeal of archaeology. Which I suppose is all a preface to saying that he and Tina are fed-up too, I believe, with New York and its life, and when last heard from planned to stay in Mexico indefinitely. So, if you feel like writing to him, there may be good ground again.
+Adele and I have burrowed in for the winter, go to parties seldom, see just a few good friends, and to my amazement spend hours listening to our hi-fi set. You know how I used to be about music. (Incidentally, our new address is 320 East 55th St. and the phone number is MU 8–0785. As always, it’s unlisted.) She, as well as me, is looking forward to your return. Is it definitely for this summer?
+And our condolences for yellow jaundice. I had it in the army so I know what it does in confusing psyche and soma. God, the depression.
+Our best to you, Bill,<br />Norm
+==128. To Mickey Knox==
+E. 55th Street, New York, NY<br />March 3, 1955
+Dear Mick,
+It’s late at night, or more accurately near three in the morning, and I’m in one of those moods. Is there anything like them? Jesus. I made the mistake of finishing a Raymond Chandler<ref>Author of ''The Big Sleep'' (1939), ''Farewell, My Lovely'' (1940), and several other hard-boiled detective novels and stories, Chandler (1888–1959) was an influence on ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1984).</ref> novel about an hour ago, and since Chandler just gets more and more depressed as the years go on, it’s a poorer and poorer idea to read him at night. Good Christ how many men there must be in the world who get that sinking feeling as deep night comes on and they have to wonder how the hell they’re going to sleep without a pill or a drink.
+[Charles] Laughton was in town for a week, and I spent from last Thursday to yesterday talking to him about the book. It’s much too early to tell of course, but I did have or rather got to have an awful lot of respect for him, and by the time he left the thing happened which I’ve been afraid of — you know — the dream of a great movie being made of ''Naked''. And now I’m a little scared because that was the one dream I didn’t want to get back into, and it’s going to hurt doubly if it misses.
+Anyway, I naturally sounded him out about casting, and this is strictly between us but nothing at all is set yet on casting. Laughton has a certain preference for well-known actors which is reasonable I expect considering that he’s one himself. But from the way he talked about the various characters, I think you’d do well to try for Minetta.<ref>Malingering soldier in ''NAD'', played by Greg Roman in the film version. Knox did not appear in the film.</ref> (At present L plans to do the scene in the psycho tent where Minetta tries to pull a Section 8 so it’s a role with some size to it.) When the time comes, I’ll make a big push for you, but frankly Mick I think the selling is going to have to come mainly from you. Laughton is very smart, very very smart, and is not at all amenable to having casting thrown at him, one has to ease it up, so to speak, and since he was ahead of me most of the time, I mentioned your name a couple of times and temporarily let it go at that. But if I were you, I’d try to get to see [Paul] Gregory again for he has a lot to do with casting. He remembered you coming in to see him and seemed to have a pleasant memory of you. What I’m trying to say is that with both these guys they pride themselves on their knowledge of actors and actor’s capacities and so while they’re ready to listen to me I definitely got the feeling that they’re far more ready to follow my lead on story than on casting.
+The ski trip is off. We figured out that it would cost us well over a thousand bucks and since we’ve been spending money like water we thought we’d better call a halt. But again we miss not seeing you. Really, Mick, New York is dull without you to spark things up. However, I suggested to Laughton that if he wanted me to work on the script I wouldn’t mind coming out to the coast. And he seemed amenable to that. So maybe in May or June,<ref>NM and Adele spent the early summer of 1955 in Europe, mainly Barcelona and Rome.</ref> Adele and I will be flying out for a month — I sure as hell hope you’re there cause without you it’ll be a dull old deal.
+''The Deer Park'' is now slated for August or September, and I’m going to give it a whirl for a month to try to add a little to Sergius at the end because to my surprise a lot of people who read it seemed to feel that Sergius was interesting and they were disappointed when he sort of dropped out. I’m kind of dreading getting into the book again, but I feel that I ought to make one more attempt. As you know, this has nothing to do with bowdlerizing it, because it’s understood with Putnam that that is out of the question. Like you, I hope the fucking thing sells a million copies, if for no other reason than to give hemorrhages to a bunch of publishing houses.
+Adele is sleeping now, and writing this letter has improved my mood considerably. Let me know what’s doing with you. Your last couple of letters have been barren of inner news.
+One last bulletin: The Styrons have a six day old daughter named Susanna.
+Love, Mick,<br />Norm
 ==Notes==