“make one sick”: Ibid., 11.
“is neither vengeance”: Ibid.
“short-tempered alcoholic”: Paul L. Montgomery, “Abbott Tells Trial of His Life in Foster Homes and Prisons,” NYT, 1-15-82, B3.
“state-raised convict”: Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast, 13.
“What we’re interested in”: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, November 1981, 124.
“He had become deathly afraid”: Ibid., 123.
“I am aware”: Ibid., 123–24.
“I didn’t see”: Ibid.
“He was wearing”: TC, 264–65.
“She’s great, she’s great!”: JML interview with Robert Silvers, 4-15-09.
“were after me”: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 126.
“Is there someone”: TC, 265–66.
showed him the Denkmäler: “How 1981 Treated Some Personalities Since We Saw Them Last,” People, 12-28-81.
enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 126.
“When you’re in a jail cell”: Transcript of The Dick Cavett Show, 2-24 and 2-25, 1982.
“Instead of unwinding”: Mark Gado, “Jack Abbott: From the Belly of the Beast,” http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/index.html.
“the feeling of lava boiling”: TC, 267.
“the repairman who came”: Ibid., 267–68.
“Abbott ratcheted it up”: Ibid.
first ice cream cone: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 128.
“He said it should”: TC, 269.
“It never occurred”: Ibid.
“He was always certain”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 1-11-12.
A letter from a Marion inmate: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 126.
“Mr. Abbott had been given”: M. A. Farber, “A Killing at Dawn Beclouds Ex-Convict Writer’s New Life,” NYT, 7-26-81.
“I don’t know”: Anson, 126.
corresponded with Kosinski: Conversations with Jerzy Kosinski, ed. Tom Teichholz (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi), 205.
“Abbott was sort of bewildered”: JML interview with Robert Silvers, 4-15-09.
“These people really like me”: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 128.
“where everyone was testy”: TC, 269.
“to go slow with him”: “Prose and Cons: Abbott, Mailer and the Real Crimes of Romance,” Soho News, 2-2-82, 10–11.
come by for help: Bell Gale Chevigny, Doing Time: Twenty-five Years of Prison Writing (NY: Arcade, 1999), xx.
“You know, that’s one”: JML interview with Richard Stratton, 4-15-09.
“Boy, were we naïve”: TC, 270.
Soho News: Quoted in The Nation; see Lee Bernstein, America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 158.
“an archipelago of the damned”: Terrence Des Pres, “A Child of the State,” NYTBR, 7-19-81.
Holocaust death camps: The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (NY: Oxford University Press, 1976).
Mailer spoke to Abbott: UPI, “Defense Alters Plan in Murder Trial of Author Jack Abbott,” Reading Eagle, 1-14-82, 29.
“This is a bad neighborhood”: Ruth Landa, AP, “Witness Describes Knife Convict-Author Carried,” Gettysburg Times, 1-14-82, 6.
slain John Lennon: M. A. Farber, “A Killing at Dawn Beclouds Ex-Convict Writer’s New Life,” NYT, 7-26-81.
“with terrific velocity”: UPI, “Defense Alters Plan.”
“like a Ping-Pong ball”: M. A. Farber, “A Killing at Dawn Beclouds Ex-Convict Writer’s New Life,” NYT, 7-26-81.
“Let’s get out of here”: Ruth Landa, “Witness Describes Knife,” Gettysburg Times, 6.
“By the time I got there”: JML interview with William Majeski, 6-4-12.
Abbott called Mailer: Dean Brelis, “In New York: Tracking a Murder Suspect,” Time, 10-26-81.
went to Erroll McDonald’s apartment: Robert Sam Anson, “The Brief and Violent Freedom of Jack Abbott,” Life, 130.
“He was extremely subdued”: M. A. Farber, “A Killing at Dawn Beclouds Ex-Convict Writer’s New Life,” NYT, 7-26-81.
“I had a lot of conversations”: This quotation, and those following up to “how his fucking book was selling” are from JML interview with William Majeski, 6-4-12.
On September 23, he was captured: Wendell Rawls Jr., “Convict-Author Eluded Police for Month,” NYT, 9-25-81, 16.
afraid someone would kill him: Michael Coakley, “Convict Author Back in ‘Belly of the Beast,’ ” Chicago Tribune, 10-25-81, Sec. 3, 10.
$100,000 in royalties: Michael Reese, Holly Morris, and Susan Argest, “Back in the Belly of the Beast,” Newsweek, 9-28-81, 31.
“I knew him from the time”: JML interview with Barbara Probst Solomon, 4-23-10.
“It was the first time”: JML interview with Barbara Probst Solomon, 5-3-09.
“I’ve been in”: NM to JML, 7-29-81.
telephones in Provincetown: TC, 279.
“extremely depressed”: JML interview with Danielle Mailer, 1-11-12.
“a few times after”: “Convict Author Is Sought by Police in Stabbing Death,” Publishers Weekly, 7-31-81.
“still unwilling to talk”: Rick Hampson, AP, “Mailer’s Ex-Con Protege Now a Fugitive,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8-18(?)-81.
“Jack Abbott has had”: Michael Reese, Holly Morris, and Susan Argest, “Back in the Belly of the Beast,” Newsweek, 9-28-81, 31.
“We’re going to have Jack”: JML interview with Ivan Fisher, 4-14-09.
“flabbergasted”: TC, 271.
“He went from the belly”: Paul L. Montgomery, “Abbott Rejects Account of Him as Violent Man,” NYT, 1-19-82, B3.
“the holy grail”: JML interview with Naomi Zack, 1-3-12.
Mailer testified: Thomas Hanrahan and Stuart Marques, “Abbott Jurors Hear His Text on Knife-Killing,” New York Daily News, 1-19-82, 4, 17.
“pay enough attention”: Transcript of NM press conference, Manhattan courthouse, 1-21-81 (JML files).
“was the worst New York press gang bang”: MBM, 16.
“Norman was never cool”: TC, 272.
“I’m saying culture”: Transcript of NM press conference.
“scumbag journalism”: Mike Pearl and Cynthia R. Fagen, “Mailer: I Would Risk Freeing Killer,” New York Post, 1-19-82, 3.
jury was divided: Mike Pearl, Cynthia Fagen, and Philip Messing, “Inside the Jury Room,” New York Post, 1-22-82, 5, 31.
“ridiculous”; “fair”: Murray Weiss and Stuart Marques, “Victim’s Kin Gives His Verdict,” New York Daily News, 1-22-82, 3, 18.
Fifteen years to life: AP, “Abbott Given Prison Term of 15 Years to Life,” Springfield State Journal-Register, 4-16-82.
“are both too strong”: Thomas Hanrahan and Don Singleton, “Might Help Again, Mailer Says,” New York Daily News, 1-23-82.
“I think he’s right”: Murray Weiss and Stuart Marques, “Victim’s Kin Gives His Verdict,” New York Daily News, 18.
“analyzed violence”: TC, 272–73.
color cover depicting him: New Republic, 9-9-81.
“a hectic screed”: James Atlas, “The Literary Life of Crime,” New Republic, 9-9-81, 21–23.
“Mailer now endorses”: Lewis Lapham, “Mailer Asks Us to Take the Risk,” Chicago Tribune, 2-26-82.
“be shackled together”: Lance Morrow, “The Poetic License to Kill,” Time, 2-1-82, 82.
“It was the myth”: Michiko Kakutani, “The Strange Case of the Writer and the Criminal,” NYTBR, 9-20-81, 1, 36–39.
limited culpability: MBM, 34–35.
“I’m not trying”: Transcript of The Dick Cavett Show, 2-24 and 2-25, 1982.
according to his daughter Danielle: JML inter
view with Danielle Mailer, 1-11-12.
“My heart goes out”: James L. W. West III, William Styron, 429.
“Remembering one’s own Elysian”: “Aftermath of ‘Aftermath,’ ” This Quiet Dust and Other Writings (NY: Random House, 1982), 141.
“I just wanted to say”: James L. W. West III, William Styron, 429. NM and Styron had spoken as early as 1972. See photo in NYRB, 1-10-13, 33.
TWELVE: PHARAOHS AND TOUGH GUYS
In addition to the sources identified below, the following were drawn on: JML’s “Mailer Log”; JML’s and Lawrence Grobel’s unpublished interviews with NM and Lawrence Schiller; JML’s unpublished interviews with BW. NM’s letters are located at the HRC.
I had to go: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 111.
liked the proposed miniseries: Aljean Harmetz, “Tracy Wynn Fighting to Get TV-Series Credit,” NYT, 1-15-82.
At lunch with Mailer: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 11–12.
written on spec: Aljean Harmetz. “Tracy Wynn Fighting to Get TV-Series Credit,” NYT.
“With every single character”: Jeffrey Severs, “The Untold Story,” MR, 112.
“It was just different”: Aljean Harmetz, “Tracy Wynn Fighting to Get TV-Series Credit,” NYT.
The guild’s judgment: Aljean Harmetz, “Wynn Loses ‘Song’ TV Credit Case,” NYT, 1-16-82.
1975 interview with Laura Adams: “Existential Aesthetics: An Interview with Norman Mailer,” PR, Spring 1975; rpt., CNM, 207–27.
“was much out of step”: Preface, PAP, x.
“envisioning and anticipating”: Robert F. Lucid, “Mailer’s Latest Is a Career Signpost,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-20-82, 7.
“the first child”: Ibid. The film version of ES, 157 minutes in length, was broadcast in two parts, November 28 and 29, 1982. The later, theatrical version, is ninety-seven minutes and contains several new scenes.
“a perfect expression”: NM to Bruce Dexter, 7-2-81.
“I really need”: NM to Richard Stratton, 12-6-82.
“the largest hashish and marijuana”: Colin Nickerson, “Drug Smuggler or Budding Author?,” Boston Globe, 12-19-82, 53, 68.
“We know your friend”: Jerry Capeci, “Feds Tried to Trap Mailer,” New York Post, 10-14-83, 3.
“a serious hard-on”: JML interview with Richard Stratton, 4-15-09.
“my heavy connections”: Ibid.
“It was a time”: Ibid.
“We know you’ve been lying”: Jerry Capeci, “Feds Tried to Trap Mailer,” New York Post, 3.
Give us Mailer: JML interview with Richard Stratton, 4-15-09.
“I figure some dealer”: Andrea Chambers, “Crime and Puzzlement: The Real-Life Mystery Behind Norman Mailer’s New Thriller,” People, 9-10-84, 42–45.
as did Robert Silvers: JML interview with Robert Silvers, 4-15-09.
William Burroughs’s novels: NM to Abbott, 2-24-84.
Mashey Bernstein: Born in Dublin in 1946, Bernstein has taught writing and film at University of California, Santa Barbara since 1971. He met NM in a New York bar in 1978, and remained friends with him. In 1991, he conducted a Passover Seder at NM’s Brooklyn apartment.
“the past draws you back”: NM to Abbott, 1-17-83.
promised his wife: NM to Ecey Gwaltney, 1-29-83.
“Fifty caused a long”: Raymond G. Cushing, “Outspoken in the ’60s, Mailer Mellows in His 60s,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 4-25-83, 1C.
losing three quarters: NM to Richard Stratton, 1-18-83.
Budge: Translator of The Egyptian Book of the Dead, E. A. Wallis Budge (1857–1934) was one of the great Egyptologists, and is primarily responsible for building the Near Eastern antiquities collection of the British Museum. He discovered several manuscripts, including The Papyrus of Ani, the chief source for The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
“to an infinitely remote”: The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani, translated and compiled by E. A. Wallis Budge (1895; NY: Dover, 1967), xii.
“Properly uttered”: Ibid., xxx.
Duad: Usually spelled “Duat”; Mailer made numerous small orthographic changes.
“had huge interest for me”: William F. Ryan, “Norman Mailer’s Ancient Magic,” Virginia Country, October 1983, 34–39, 88.
Flinders Petrie: Another giant of Egyptology, Petrie (1853–1942), the chair of Egyptology at University College London, donated his head for study by the Royal College of Surgeons.
Creation: (NY: Random House, 1981).
“Gore and I”: William Robertson, “Mailer Hits 60,” Miami Herald, 2-6-83, 1G–2G.
As Robert Begiebing notes: Robert Begiebing, Toward a New Synthesis: John Fowles, John Gardner, Norman Mailer (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989), 99–101.
“Gore is not the worst”: William Robertson, “Mailer Hits 60,” 2G.
“I’ve spent my writing life”: William Robertson, “Mailer Hits 60,” Miami Herald, 1G.
“pure escapism”: Robert Taylor, “Mailer Says Best Is Yet to Come with ‘Ancient Evenings,’ ” Chicago Sun-Times, 2-10-83, 82.
Ancient Evenings to Salammbô: Harold Bloom, introduction, Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Norman Mailer (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003), 2.
“I thought that I would”: Digby Diehl.
The Golden Bough: NM owned the twelve-volume set published by Macmillan in 1930.
History of Magic and Experimental Science: (NY: Columbia University Press, 1923).
“the substitution of magic”: William Ryan, “Norman Mailer’s Ancient Magic,” 37.
“a novel about magic”: Begiebing, CNM, 326.
“Mailer had so well”: Marshall Ledger, “The Surreal Professor,” Pennsylvania Gazette, May 1983, 22.
“the amount of electromagnetic”: William Ryan, “Norman Mailer’s Ancient Magic,” 37.
The earliest excerpt: “From a Work in Progress,” Paris Review, Winter 1982, 10–14.
“Somewhere in those”: AE, 27–28.
synesthesia: See Maureen Seaberg, Tasting the Universe: A Spiritual and Scientific Exploration of Synesthesia (Pompton Plains, NJ: New Page, 2011), 107–14, for a discussion of synesthesia in AE and MAR.
“I became hard”: AE, 29.
“lights and forces”: Used by NM as a covering phrase in a headnote to the excerpt in The Paris Review.
“In this telling”: Benjamin DeMott, “Norman Mailer’s Egyptian Novel,” NYTBR, 4-10-83, 1.
more than fifty interviews: The most important include: Begiebing, CNM, 306–29; Marie Brenner: “Mailer Goes Egyptian,” New York; Eugene Kennedy, “Mailer’s Long Pursuit of His ‘Murky Unconscious,’ ” Detroit News, 4-24-83, 1E, 2E; George Plimpton, “Unbloodied by the Critical Pounding,” People; William Ryan, “Norman Mailer’s Ancient Magic,” 34–39. James Campbell, “Making Ends Meet: James Campbell Meets Norman Mailer,” Literary Review, July 1983, 28–31.
“get very little”: Begiebing, CNM, 318.
tail of a dinosaur: Chuck Pfeifer, “Norman Mailer,” Interview, August 1984, 60.
“a disaster”: Benjamin DeMott, “Norman Mailer’s Egyptian Novel,” NYTBR, 34.
friendly reviewers: Vance Bourjaily, “Return of the Ancient Mailer,” Esquire, April 1983, 116–17; Richard Poirier, “In Pyramid and Palace,” Times Literary Supplement, 6-10-83; rpt., JML, ed., Critical Essays on Norman Mailer, 82–89; Barry Leeds, “Mailer’s Latest Worth the Wait,” Hartford Courant, 4-24-83; Christopher Ricks, “Mailer’s Primal Words,” Grand Street, Autumn 1983, 161–72; Anthony Burgess, “Magical Droppings,” Observer, 6-5-83, 30; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Books of the Times,” NYT, 4-4-83; Robert Gorham Davis, “Excess Without End,” New Leader, 5-16-83, 14–15.
“a felt need to justify”: Richard Poirier, “In Pyramid and Palace,” Times Literary Supplement, Critical Essays on Norman Mailer, 87.
“the transitions”: Eugene Kennedy, “Mailer’s Long Pursuit,” Detroit News, 2E.
He denied, repeatedly: See, for example, Brenner,
31.
ladder of lights: AE, 708–09.
as described in the Book of the Dead: Budge, lxx–lxxi.
“a scream of anguish”: CAC, 394–97.
“the desire”: Poirier, 89.
Swedish publisher: Jinny St. Goar, “Mailer in Swedish,” Forbes, 8-15-83, 90–92.
$120,000 in England: Dick Lochte, “Book Notes,” Los Angeles Times, 9-6-81.
Other foreign editions: Edwin McDowell, “Mailer and Random House Sign a $4 Million Contract,” NYT, 8-2-83.
HIDEOUS REVIEWS: HRC.
Wolcott’s “a muddle of incest”: “Enter the Mummy,” Harper’s, May 1983, 81–83.
Koenig’s condemnation: “ ‘Give Me Your Obelisk,’ ” New York, 4-25-83, 71–72.
Fremont-Smith’s summary: Appeared in VV, probably in spring 1983.
“the deepest structural principle”: Begiebing, Toward a New Synthesis, 109.
Ramses II: Ibid., 112.
Bufithis sent Mailer an essay: “Norman Mailer,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, 1983 (Detroit: Gale, 1984), 162–66.
“not met with in any other”: Ibid., 163.
“inveighing against American”: Ibid., 165.
“richness, radiance”: Ibid., 166.
Lucid’s former graduate student: Bufithis wrote his Ph.D. dissertation under Lucid at the University of Pennsylvania.
“is, I fear”: NM to Bufithis, 6-25-84.
“the best book”: Julie Rubenstein and Greg Tobin, “Behind the Lines,” Literary Guild Magazine, June 1983, 5.
“the best thing I’ve read”: NM to Begiebing, 4-19-89.
Tough Guys Don’t Dance: Published by Random House, 8-20-84.
“can come out”: NM to Bruce Dexter, 4-5-89.
“the fine filigree tip”: TGD, 17.
“the rustle along the beach”: Ibid., 101.
“drear”: Ibid., 3.
“He climbed”: JML interview with Dotson Rader, 3-25-10.
“with everyone gone”: TGD, 6. NM named this passage as his favorite depiction of place in his work: Three Minutes or Less: Life Lessons from America’s Greatest Writers (NY: Bloomsbury/PEN/Faulkner, 2000), 221.
“in complicity with evil”: Christopher Ricks, “Rectum,” London Review of Books, 10-18-84, 15.
“held in the grip”: TGD, 81–82. NM knew that Jonathan Thomas, husband of Sandy Charlebois Thomas, his secretary in the late 1960s, almost made it to the monument’s peak in 1959. See “To Fellows and Friends,” Provincetown Advocate, 7-23-59.
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