A second printing of 50 copies of 76 Mailer letters concerning the conception, composition, publication and reception of his 1965 novel, An American Dream, has been made available to The Mailer Society. Bound in maroon buckram, with gold spine lettering, this edition is identical to the first limited edition of 140 copies, except for its binding and the presence of an errata sheet, laid in. It is 123 pages in length with 14 illustrations (ten in color), a bibliography, appendices, a full index and an introduction and notes by the editor J. Michael Lennon. The edition includes letters to Pete Hamill, Diana Trilling, Jason Epstein, Mickey Knox, Don Kaufmann, Roger Shattuck, Willie Morris, Louis Mailer, Vance Bourjaily, John W. Aldridge, Diana Athill, Don Carpenter, Robert F. Lucid, and Mailer’s Japanese translator, Eichii Yamanishi, among many others. Copies are no longer offered through the Society.
Read the Letters
Every letter in the collection can now be read in full in the digital edition of Norman Mailer: Works and Days, reproduced by permission of the editor. Together they are the richest record of how Mailer wrote a novel under pressure: the deal with Dial and Dell for the unwritten book, the eight monthly installments for Esquire that he called “the perils of Pauline,” the novel’s publication by Dial in March 1965, and its reception. Among the correspondents are his Japanese translator Eiichi Yamanishi, his British editor Diana Athill, Diana Trilling, Don Carpenter, Fig Gwaltney, and Mickey Knox.
In his introduction, J. Michael Lennon argues that with An American Dream Mailer for the first time gave a major character, Stephen Rojack, his own deepest concerns and beliefs: “a belief in an heroic but limited God locked in struggle with a powerful, wily Devil.”
In Works and Days
- Norman Mailer’s Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969 — the collection, with every letter in full
- An American Dream — Mailer’s fourth novel and his first in nine years: the story of Stephen Rojack, who murders his wife and spends 32 hours evading consequence and confronting the Devil.
- J. Michael Lennon — Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer, archivist, and close friend; Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University and Chair of the Editorial Board of The Mailer…
- Pete Hamill — American journalist and novelist, a friend of Mailer’s since they met in Chicago in 1962; interviewed Mailer on the 1965 New York mayoral race.
- Diana Trilling — American literary and cultural critic (1905-1996); an early and sustained reader of Mailer, from her 1948 note on The Naked and the Dead to her essay ‘The Radical…
- Jason Epstein — American editor, a founder of the New York Review of Books and longtime editorial director at Random House; he became Mailer’s editor when Mailer moved to Random House…
- Mickey Knox — American actor and translator (1921–2013) blacklisted in the early 1950s; one of Mailer’s closest personal friends from 1951 until his death.
- Roger Shattuck — Mailer met Roger Shattuck, the art critic, in Brooklyn in the 1950s.
- Willie Morris — American writer and editor of Harper’s Magazine (1967-1971); his March 1971 resignation followed the publication of Mailer’s ‘The Prisoner of Sex’ as the magazine’s…