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The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942: Difference between revisions
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{{byline|last=Lucid|first=Robert F.|note=The following excerpt comes from the manuscript of the late Robert F. Lucid’s incomplete authorized biography of Norman Mailer. He died in December of 2006 before he could complete it. The editors are grateful to his son, John Michael Lucid, for granting permission to ''The Mailer Review'' to publish this excerpt. It is taken from chapter 2 of the manuscript, which deals with Mailer’s brief but memorable experience at the Boston State Hospital in the summer between his junior and senior years at Harvard. The title was provided by the editors.|url=https://prmlr.us/ | {{byline|last=Lucid|first=Robert F.|note=The following excerpt comes from the manuscript of the late Robert F. Lucid’s incomplete authorized biography of Norman Mailer. He died in December of 2006 before he could complete it. The editors are grateful to his son, John Michael Lucid, for granting permission to ''The Mailer Review'' to publish this excerpt. It is taken from chapter 2 of the manuscript, which deals with Mailer’s brief but memorable experience at the Boston State Hospital in the summer between his junior and senior years at Harvard. The title was provided by the editors.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr01luc}} | ||
{{dc|dc=N|orman, having become all but inseparable from Bea,}}{{refn|His future wife Beatrice Silverman.}} had tried since the start of the second semester{{refn|{{date|January 1942}}.}} to spend as much time in the Cambridge/Boston area as possible, and of course his family noticed his increasingly elaborate excuses for not coming home, as well as the cut-short vacations. He drove the nearly expired car down in early May, so that Fan [Mailer, his mother] could either sell or junk it, but the visit was a very short one. Uncle Dave [Kessler] had offered to help Norman if he encountered financial difficulties in his plan to spend the summer in Boston, but Fan remained concerned. Norman had always come home to his family, specifically to Long Branch [New Jersey], during the summers, and though the Scarboro [Hotel] was no more, Aunt Beck had a place for him in Monmouth Beach [where Mailer’s mother’s family operated resort hotels]. | |||
Instead, he insisted on staying in Boston. As always, Fan finally came around to seeing things Norman’s way, but she was not reassured by one of his most central arguments in support of his plan. Earlier in the spring he had applied for and received his first social security card, and he already had landed a job, he told her: starting June 12 he would be earning $15 a week plus room and board as an attendant at the Boston State Hospital. It was a public facility for the emotionally disturbed, and locally it was referred to as the insane asylum. | Instead, he insisted on staying in Boston. As always, Fan finally came around to seeing things Norman’s way, but she was not reassured by one of his most central arguments in support of his plan. Earlier in the spring he had applied for and received his first social security card, and he already had landed a job, he told her: starting {{date|June 12}} he would be earning $15 a week plus room and board as an attendant at the Boston State Hospital. It was a public facility for the emotionally disturbed, and locally it was referred to as the insane asylum. | ||
Norman moved out of Dunster House and on Friday, June 12, moved into the West Wing of the Male Attendants’ House of Boston State Hospital, whose buildings were laid out campus-fashion on grounds at 591 Boston Centre. With him came Douglas Woolf, a student-writer who had appeared with Norman in the May [''Harvard''] ''Advocate'', and the two undergraduates began a schedule of twelve hour days as apprentice-attendants. | Norman moved out of Dunster House and on Friday, {{date|June 12}}, moved into the West Wing of the Male Attendants’ House of Boston State Hospital, whose buildings were laid out campus-fashion on grounds at 591 Boston Centre. With him came Douglas Woolf, a student-writer who had appeared with Norman in the May [''Harvard''] ''Advocate'', and the two undergraduates began a schedule of twelve hour days as apprentice-attendants. | ||
Assigned to assist the veteran attendants, they mopped the lounges and wards and helped herd the inmates around from sleeping to recreational to eating areas, monitoring them in their routine activities and getting sunburnt with them in the outdoor exercise compounds. Crushed by the workload and shocked by the brutality of the attendants and other staff members, Norman and his friend quickly realized that they were in over their heads. Woolf left at mid-week and Norman lasted just eight days before he collected $20 in salary and plunged through the streaming dark of a rainstorm to seek shelter at Bea’s family home in Chelsea. There he called his parents in Brooklyn, told them something about how difficult the hospital job had been, and explained that he was going to find another job in Boston to support himself as he stayed there and wrote for the rest of the summer. | Assigned to assist the veteran attendants, they mopped the lounges and wards and helped herd the inmates around from sleeping to recreational to eating areas, monitoring them in their routine activities and getting sunburnt with them in the outdoor exercise compounds. Crushed by the workload and shocked by the brutality of the attendants and other staff members, Norman and his friend quickly realized that they were in over their heads. Woolf left at mid-week and Norman lasted just eight days before he collected $20 in salary and plunged through the streaming dark of a rainstorm to seek shelter at Bea’s family home in Chelsea. There he called his parents in Brooklyn, told them something about how difficult the hospital job had been, and explained that he was going to find another job in Boston to support himself as he stayed there and wrote for the rest of the summer. | ||
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His most dramatic experience there had taken place about halfway through his eight-day stay, and so hypnotically did it affect him that he could readily recount it in interviews thirty-five and forty years later, always with perfect consistency of detail: | His most dramatic experience there had taken place about halfway through his eight-day stay, and so hypnotically did it affect him that he could readily recount it in interviews thirty-five and forty years later, always with perfect consistency of detail: | ||
{{quote|A colored kid went ape, a kid I knew, in another ward. He’d broken a table, and he had the two legs in each hand for clubs. The attendants were moving in on him with mattresses, trying to smother him back into a corner. But he broke through, and I tackled him. Then they closed in on him and took turns beating him until they knocked him unconscious, which took a while because he was tough. I didn’t hit him, but I knew I was perhaps three months away from that kind of thing.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Brower |first=Brock |date= | {{quote|A colored kid went ape, a kid I knew, in another ward. He’d broken a table, and he had the two legs in each hand for clubs. The attendants were moving in on him with mattresses, trying to smother him back into a corner. But he broke through, and I tackled him. Then they closed in on him and took turns beating him until they knocked him unconscious, which took a while because he was tough. I didn’t hit him, but I knew I was perhaps three months away from that kind of thing.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Brower |first=Brock |date={{date|1965-09-24|MDY}} |title=In This Corner, Norman Mailer: Never the Champion, Always the Challenger |url= |magazine=Life }}</ref> }} | ||
He wanted to write about it, and he also wanted to take Bea down and introduce her to more of the family, and an invitation from his Aunt Beck provided the perfect opportunity for both. The aunt with whom he had spent so many summers at the Scarboro was living this summer in Monmouth Beach, close by Long Branch. She may or may not have been leasing a hotel, but she had some kind of accommodations and she wanted her nephew to visit her. So toward the end of the month Norman took a midnight bus down to Brooklyn, stayed only a day, and then proceeded to his Aunt’s [house]. Bea, in turn, took a bus to Monmouth Beach, and the couple presented themselves for inspection. | He wanted to write about it, and he also wanted to take Bea down and introduce her to more of the family, and an invitation from his Aunt Beck provided the perfect opportunity for both. The aunt with whom he had spent so many summers at the Scarboro was living this summer in Monmouth Beach, close by Long Branch. She may or may not have been leasing a hotel, but she had some kind of accommodations and she wanted her nephew to visit her. So toward the end of the month Norman took a midnight bus down to Brooklyn, stayed only a day, and then proceeded to his Aunt’s [house]. Bea, in turn, took a bus to Monmouth Beach, and the couple presented themselves for inspection. | ||
Bea’s famed self-possession must have taken something of a testing as [his aunts] Beck and Rose and Jennie, not to mention the numerous cousins led by the formidable Osie, came to meet the girl that must have been the subject of much conversation. The parties all seem to have got on reasonably well, and Bea took the bus back as Norman settled into prepared quarters to address his “insane asylum play.” He began it on August 31, worked steadily for two weeks, and completed the 113-page typescript on September 14. | Bea’s famed self-possession must have taken something of a testing as [his aunts] Beck and Rose and Jennie, not to mention the numerous cousins led by the formidable Osie, came to meet the girl that must have been the subject of much conversation. The parties all seem to have got on reasonably well, and Bea took the bus back as Norman settled into prepared quarters to address his “insane asylum play.” He began it on August 31, worked steadily for two weeks, and completed the 113-page typescript on {{date|September 14}}. | ||
The specific action of the play does, indeed, center around the subduing and subsequent beating of a young black inmate, a dope addict, who has run amok. The episode — which is played off stage — is employed, however, to illumine the nature of institutions, and to address the question of how brutality is elevated to a level of social respectability by originally decent and civilized people. The play’s central characters are David Land and Ralph Hughson, undergraduates who have come to work as attendants for the summer. Ralph is pre-med, self-confident and successful at adjusting to the job, while David, a School of Social Work student, is struggling, full of self-doubt, and something of a failure as an attendant. | The specific action of the play does, indeed, center around the subduing and subsequent beating of a young black inmate, a dope addict, who has run amok. The episode — which is played off stage — is employed, however, to illumine the nature of institutions, and to address the question of how brutality is elevated to a level of social respectability by originally decent and civilized people. The play’s central characters are David Land and Ralph Hughson, undergraduates who have come to work as attendants for the summer. Ralph is pre-med, self-confident and successful at adjusting to the job, while David, a School of Social Work student, is struggling, full of self-doubt, and something of a failure as an attendant. | ||
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Desperately though he tries, David is never able to find a sufficiently responsible supervisor with whom he can lodge his complaint. Neither the doctors nor Supervisor Nurse Tashko are interested. As he attempts to find them, David is warned of the plot against him, so that when the violent patient is unleashed upon him he is able to defend himself. In the fight to bring the patient under control, however, David is horrified to discover a thrill of pleasure in himself as he beats the man into submission. He and Ralph finally see the hopelessness of staying on at the hospital, so they both resign and leave for what they hope will be a restorative fishing trip. | Desperately though he tries, David is never able to find a sufficiently responsible supervisor with whom he can lodge his complaint. Neither the doctors nor Supervisor Nurse Tashko are interested. As he attempts to find them, David is warned of the plot against him, so that when the violent patient is unleashed upon him he is able to defend himself. In the fight to bring the patient under control, however, David is horrified to discover a thrill of pleasure in himself as he beats the man into submission. He and Ralph finally see the hopelessness of staying on at the hospital, so they both resign and leave for what they hope will be a restorative fishing trip. | ||
Though his play is by no means lacking in power, Norman found himself unsure about it — it was, at most, only the second one he had tried to write — and he resolved to get some reactions to it before considering further revision. When he takes the story up again the following spring, it will be to re-envision the action in the form of a long and tortured novel | Though his play is by no means lacking in power, Norman found himself unsure about it — it was, at most, only the second one he had tried to write — and he resolved to get some reactions to it before considering further revision. When he takes the story up again the following spring, it will be to re-envision the action in the form of a long and tortured novel{{refn|''A Transit to Narcissus'', published in a facsimile edition by Howard Fertig in {{date|1978}}.}} but first he had a few things he needed to do. Earlier in the summer he had been reading Malraux, and was struck by a line in Man’s Fate: “All that men are willing to die for, beyond self-interest, tends . . . to justify that fate by giving it a foundation in dignity.” He thought that “The Foundation” might be just the right title for a novella he had been planning, and he wanted to start on it as soon as he was free. Claiming first priority, however, was the need to move out of Aunt Beck’s, pull his things together in Brooklyn, and get started on his senior year at Harvard. | ||
{{Notes}} | |||
{{Review|state=expanded}} | {{Review|state=expanded}} | ||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942}} | ||
[[Category:Articles (MR)]] | [[Category:Articles (MR)]] | ||
[[Category:Biographies (MR)]] | [[Category:Biographies (MR)]] | ||