Richard Kluger, March 22, 1965

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

142 Columbia Heights

Brooklyn 1, New York

March 22, 1965

Dear Dick,^[1]

Thank you for your letter, which was a good one. There are no hard feelings. All you can ever ask of a book review editor is that he offers you a fair to good draw on the reviewer. And in advance I would have said Tom Wolfe was a fair choice.^[2] The New York Review is the one I’m irritated at. Because [Robert B.] Silvers must have known (everyone else in New York did) that my work has been anathema to Philip Rahv for years.^[3]

Here’s the list. I’m not very happy with it, and I’m not sure you’re doing the right thing. It’s the sort of poll that tends to reinforce a literary establishment. My opinions go into the hopper with Granville Hicks’—what does that accomplish?^[4] Since there are more Hicks, he thrives on this sort of poll and ultimately I perish. Perhaps not personally, i.e., my “stock” can remain high, but my power to influence opinion has to be diminished by setting up a College of Electors of this sort.

Yours sincerely,

Norman

This page is part of
An American Dream Expanded.

Notes

↑ Kluger was an editor at the literary supplement, Book Week. Mailer was responding, in part, to his request for a list of the books that most influenced him.
↑ Tom Wolfe, novelist and new journalist, wrote a negative review of An American Dream that appeared in Book Week on 14 March 1965.
↑ Philip Rahv, the literary critic, wrote his negative review for the 25 March 1965 number of the New York Review of Books, edited by Robert B. Silvers.
↑ Granville Hicks was the literary editor of The Saturday Review, where on 20 March 1965 he gave the novel a negative review, suggesting that it was a literary hoax. Mailer called him “predictable Hicks” in a review of Norman Podhoretz’s memoir, Making It, in Partisan Review, spring 1968.

[1] Kluger was an editor at the literary supplement, Book Week. Mailer was responding, in part, to his request for a list of the books that most influenced him.

[2] Tom Wolfe, novelist and new journalist, wrote a negative review of An American Dream that appeared in Book Week on 14 March 1965.

[3] Philip Rahv, the literary critic, wrote his negative review for the 25 March 1965 number of the New York Review of Books, edited by Robert B. Silvers.

[4] Granville Hicks was the literary editor of The Saturday Review, where on 20 March 1965 he gave the novel a negative review, suggesting that it was a literary hoax. Mailer called him “predictable Hicks” in a review of Norman Podhoretz’s memoir, Making It, in Partisan Review, spring 1968.

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