Lipton’s Journal/Introduction: Difference between revisions

{{byline|last=Lennon|first=J. Michael|last1=Mailer|first1=Susan|last2=Lucas|first2=Gerald R.}}

{{dc|dc=T|he late-1950s was a difficult time for Norman Mailer.}} {{NM}}, who had been a literary phenomenon at the age of 25 with his first novel ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' (1948), was now at thirty-two the author of an unsuccessful second novel which had been brutally dismissed by the critics. There was much at stake with his third novel, ''[[The Deer Park]]'' (1955), about to be published by Rinehart. Mailer felt it was his chance to redeem himself, to believe once again that he was not an impostor but a true novelist. Mailer recalls this time in his 1959 essay, “[[59.14|The Mind of an Outlaw]],” Mailer’s ego-bruised, comic-caustic account of how he peddled ''The Deer Park'' accumulating rejections like barnacles, he mentions a journal that he kept during that unhappy time. Titled “Lipton’s” (tea = marijuana), the journal was “a wild set of thoughts and outlines for huge projects.” The ideas “came so fast,” he wrote, “that sometimes I think my mind was dulled by the heat.” He began “Lipton’s”{{efn|The original typescript is in the Mailer archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas-Austin. This edition was prepared from the carbon copy, which Mailer gave to Lennon in the early 2000s.}} on December 1, 1954 and made entries sporadically, usually on Mondays and Tuesdays after a weekend of smoking pot and going to Harlem jazz clubs with his new wife, [[w:Adele Morales|Adele Morales]]. After 13 weeks, he put the journal aside in order to begin a final revision of ''The Deer Park'', which Putnam’s—the seventh publisher to consider it—accepted for fall publication.