The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/On the State of Mailer Studies: A Conversation with J. Michael Lennon: Difference between revisions

psychoanalyst Robert Lindner, who Mailer sent copies of many of the journal’s entries for comment. Some of Mailer’s letters to Linder, who was a close friend, have been published in my edition of Mailer’s letters, but not all.

'''JML''': I’m not sure. Much of that will be up to Jerry and his editing, after which Susan and I will go over it one more time. It has been held up a little because Susan was immersed in completing her memoir, ''In Another Place: My Life with and without My Father, Norman Mailer''. We would like to publish Lipton’s in Mailer’s centenary year, 2023.

hundred and twenty-five books, all told. Early on, they published only long deceased authors. However, over the past ten years or so, they changed that policy. Now, Updike, Roth, Sontag, and Didion volumes have come out, all

I think that there is merit in publishing a volume in 2023, and ''The Naked and the Dead'' strikes me as perhaps the best choice, especially if we can include supplementary materials by Mailer that bear on the novel. By that I mean two prefaces that he wrote for later editions of the novel, and some of

Philippines, he wrote numerous letters home to his first wife, Beatrice. I included about ten of them in ''Selected Letters of Norman Mailer'', but there are many more. They are important because they were essentially planning documents for ''The Naked and the Dead''.

how good they are. Norman had some wonderful insights about his wartime experiences, his reading, his plans for ''The Naked and the Dead'', and his time in occupied Japan. He also talks about his family, reading ''The Razor’s Edge''

'''PS''': Serving the primary mission of the Society.

'''JML''': Yes, certainly.

I believe she has over contributors. I know that you’ve done the chapter on Mailer as a literary and film critic. She asked me if I would write on Norman Mailer and John F. Kennedy and I was happy to agree. I was surprised at how many places Kennedy shows up that I had forgotten. In my essay, I try to survey all of the major depictions of Kennedy in Mailer’s writing, approximately a dozen.

I looked for the pattern of how his view of Kennedy evolved. His admiration for Kennedy went up and down a little at the beginning, but in the early 1960s, it was always strong. He had a rich, complex view of JFK, and was intrigued by the question of how his Hollywood leading-man appearance affected his political chances. I don’t think that there is any other historical figure that Mailer wrote about as often, and with greater penetration, than Kennedy. He wrote about him, beginning in 1960, and continuing right up through ''Harlot’s Ghost'' (1991), and even later. Oliver Stone made a movie,

''JFK'', which Mailer reviewed in a long essay in which he revisited all his earlier ideas about Kennedy. And then, of course, he is a key figure in ''Oswald’s Tale''. Another key text is ''An American Dream'', where he has an off-stage role.

paramount significance, which I discuss in my Cambridge essay that examines Mailer’s criticism. You also mentioned Susan Mailer’s recent memoir ''In Another Place'', in which she addresses her relationship with her father.

She saw her father in a range of contexts because he visited her often in Mexico, and he visited her later in Chile, where she eventually married and lived. I should add that it is not just a story of Norman Mailer—it is also a story of

memoir and I enjoyed reading it very much. Bonnie Culver (Wilkes University) has written a play, ''NORRIS'', which portrays Norris Church Mailer, Norman’s sixth wife to whom he was married for over three decades, as I

the Society, from the Mailer family. ''Norris'' is going to be performed at a playhouses in Santa Monica and Anne Archer will play Norris. Anne is the right age, a tall redhead, and likes the script very much. So everything looks very

promising and it appears that the opening of the play will take place in Santa Monica. Bonnie is a professional playwright, as you know, and her work has appeared off-Broadway as well in other venues around the country. I believe

stories and essays, interviews and much more. Each issue you publish contains a detailed annual bibliography on works by and about Mailer that keeps readers in touch with what is going on within and beyond the scholarly

critical eye and your excellent suggestions for topics, articles, historical projects, contributors, and so forth. The current volume is number 13, (bringing us to roughly 6,000 pages over 13 years), and we strive to do our best. As you know, we have faced many challenges over time, like all scholarly journals. We are an all-volunteer staff and we certainly make mistakes, mostly my errata, but we try to devote ourselves to produce an eclectic periodical that

much of it as I could. I know that Nicole DePolo is very interested in researching these areas. Nicole is a member of the Mailer Board and she is quite interested because she wants to follow up her earlier work on Mailer’s

'''JML''': Yes, Christopher Ricks at Boston University. Nicole and John Buffalo have expressed interest in creating a kind of a graphic novel on parts of ''Ancient Evenings'' and the work that Judith did on ''Ancient Evenings'' would surely be very important. I should also note again that the Farley Library at Wilkes has Mailer’s library for scholars to review and attempt to derive a sense of the contents of his mind. The Farley’s archivist, Suzanna Calev, is doing a terrific

between Norman and John in 2003 and 2004, when Mailer was in his early eighties. I have been told that the play is projected to open on Broadway with F. Murray Abraham playing Norman Mailer. Julian Schlossberg, a film

fruits of these interactions. There is an analogue in what happened in Hemingway studies after he died. Hemingway’s children, siblings, and friends began generating out books, movies, and memoirs about Hemingway and

'''JML''': I think that the same thing is happening with Mailer. I should also mention how valuable your omnibus collection of Mailer’s essays is becoming for scholars and critics (''[[Mind of an Outlaw]]'', Random House, 2013). It is a great resource.

'''PS''': Thanks, Mike. Yes, ''Outlaw'' came out concurrently with your biography.

'''JML''': Well, I guess that as far as Mailer studies are concerned, the first thing will be to get back to work on ''Lipton’s'' with Susan and Jerry, and continue to collaborate with him on ''Project Mailer''. Another project is my memoir about Mailer’s last days, which will examine some of the things that I have mentioned in this interview: how I first became involved with Mailer, how I became connected to Bob Lucid, and how I served as a kind of apprentice archivist. And, of course, how I finally took over the job of becoming Mailer’s biographer. My memoir will be based in part on the notes that I made during his last years in Provincetown, his “table talk.” I have about twenty-five thousand words written, but I have only just started to work on developing them. It is going to be a long project, but it is something I have wanted to do