Lipton’s Journal/Correspondence of Robert Lindner and Norman Mailer/September 15, 1954
| NORMAN MAILER’s Letters |
- To Norman Mailer
- September 15, 1954
Hermano mio,
Now, at last, I take my pen in hand (I’d take my secretary, but she’s otherwise engaged) to write to you. Why I haven’t done so before—there are many reasons, but most of it has been sheer laziness. Anyhow, I don’t like to write letters to you, Chico—I’d rather speak direct—man talk. Letters embarrass me. And who knows? They’re even saying Freud and Fleiss had a mad affair![1]
We returned to Baltimore last week, worn out from violent vacationing. Now I’m back at work, slaving over a hot couch and chasing a buck here and there. Actually, I’ve hardly dug in, and don’t expect to—really—until next week, when I return from a quick trip to New York. I have to go there to meet and talk with the people who are arranging a lecture tour for me in California beginning November 1st. You did not know this, Ginso, so I’m telling you now. On November 1st, we go West for about two weeks. Anyhow, previous to seeing these birds about the arrangements and details, I have to talk with Ivan [Von Auw]. Always (you know) with an eye to the main chance, I’d like to see if there’s a possibility to have the articles (lectures) commissioned by someone, or gather them into a fast small book. So when I get back (from N.Y.), I’ll have to hustle to put the stuff down on paper.
So much to tell you—and so much I want to know about you, Cholo. I think the state of our souls needs examination and discussion over a quart of whiskey. Hurry back, Pal.
Which brings me to what you are doing. I like the fact that you are having etwases, that you are thinking about two novels, that your liver is lively, your gonads sizzling, and your asshole is tight—But, amigo querido,[2] this flirtation of yours with the gage[3]—this I do not like. Not because it may mean early doom or residence in some Yiddish purgatory—that would be okay since then we’d share hellroom together—but because the winding of the self should take place from the inside. A theory I’ll discuss with you one night soon.
By the way, I don’t know if you know yet about the love affair between the Rembars and the Lindners. It’s a fact, anyhow. On Friday, when I get to New York, I’ll be calling Cy[4]—and getting what news he has of you. Perhaps he’ll tell me then about the Naked deal.[5] And when you get rich, Chazar,[6] I’ll take the Jaguar on the left.
Christ! I miss you.
The jacket came from Rinehart for the 50 minute job.[7] I don’t what to make of it—or how to think of it. Everyone says it’s “striking, vivid, attention-getting.”—Me? I think it looks like something that’s been cooking too long.
How’s my Peruvian Yenta? If I thought you knew where to do it, I’d ask you to kiss her for me.
All of us enjoy good health. Maybe that’s why I feel so bad.
Adios, marica,[8]
- Robert———el toro dé Latrobe[9]
notes
- ↑ Wilhelm Fleiss (1858-1928), a German medical doctor, was a close friend and collaborator with Freud, and carried on a long correspondence with him. He is credited with giving Freud the idea of innate bisexuality, and also came up with theories that prefigure the controversial idea of human biorhythms.
- ↑ Dear friend.
- ↑ Marijuana.
- ↑ Mailer’s first cousin, Charles Rembar (1915-2000), was a prominent First Amendment lawyer, who successfully defended the publication of banned books such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer. He was Mailer’s lawyer for over three decades.
- ↑ The film version was sold to a production company run by Charles Laughton and Paul Gregory. It was not completed and released until 1958, and received generally tepid reviews.
- ↑ A variant of Khazar, a Turkic people living on the southeastern border of Russia.
- ↑ The Fifty-Minute Hour.
- ↑ Spanish term for a gay person, another of Lindner’s jibes.
- ↑ The bull from Latrobe. Lindner refers to his office at Latrobe Apartments in Baltimore.
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