An American Dream Expanded/Publishers Weekly March 22, 1965: Difference between revisions

Mr. Mailer, talking about ''An American Dream,''  said that while it was substantially complete as originally written for ''Esquire'' in a series of monthly installments, adding up to eight chapters, he had worked on it extensive for style “and toning” before its publication in book form and “I really think it is a better book now.”

Asked the central, driving influence that kept him working on such a tight schedule that he had to finish the novel in a year or less, Mr. Mailer said, “professionalism.” He said he had wanted to try his hand at producing a novel under such pressure, “but if I had to follow such a schedule for five years it would kill me.”

''An American Dream,'' Mr. Mailer said, seemed to write itself extremely naturally. “A book is prepared in one’s unconscious. The words (call them troops) start marching through your body. If you go out and get drunk one night the troops get bombed and you run into a writer’s block.  When your’re working steadily this will not happen.”  

What effect has success had on him? Mr. Mailer was asked “A big hit changes your life altogether. You become a different person.” He answered. “The Naked and the Dead changed all my reflexes. Before that I had the value judgments of an infantry-man. Once you have a lot of success you spend an awful lot of time with the officers. As James Jones once said to me, “God damn it, Norman, I’m becoming an officer.”