10,115
edits
The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942 (view source)
Revision as of 16:27, 23 May 2019
, 23 May 2019Corrected typo.
m (Added url.) |
m (Corrected typo.) |
||
| Line 2: | Line 2: | ||
{{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/mr07luci}} | {{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/mr07luci}} | ||
Norman, having become all but inseparable from Bea<ref>His future wife Beatrice Silverman.</ref> | Norman, having become all but inseparable from Bea,<ref>His future wife Beatrice Silverman.</ref> had tried since the start of the second semester<ref>January 1942.</ref> 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 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. | ||