2005

In April, Mailer sells his 500-cubic-foot archive, including approximately 50,000 of his letters, to the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, for $2.5 million. Later that month, he attends a conference at the University titled “Norman Mailer Takes on America.”

On 8 September, Mailer undergoes a successful quadruple bypass operation at Mass General in Boston. On 16 November, he is awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation.

Norman Mailer’s Provincetown: The Wild West of the East (05.15), a pamphlet containing excerpts from his work about Provincetown, including his favorite poem, “The Harbors of the Moon,” is published by Provincetown Arts Press.

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  NM in 2005. Photo by Star Black.

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  NM in 2006.

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  NM in Provincetown, 2006.