What the Society noticed about Mailer in 2014: books, films, articles, events, and the people around him. Each item links to its source where one survives.
February
- 1 — On what would have been Mailer’s 91st birthday, BookTrib raises a glass to his last novel, The Castle in the Forest: “Here’s to You, Mr. Mailer.”
- 15 — A guide to decoding Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament, his Mailer-obsessed new opus. Artspace
- 18 — Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament, summoning Mailer and Egyptian mythology, is reviewed as a baroque and baffling art-world spectacle. The New York Times
- 27 — For William S. Burroughs’s centenary, James Parker and Rivka Galchen ask what has become of the literary bad boy. The New York Times Book Review
March
- 1 — Music Box Records releases Angelo Badalamenti’s remastered and expanded score for Tough Guys Don’t Dance on CD. More
April
- 2 — J. Michael Lennon announces The Selected Letters of Norman Mailer.
- 11 — Lawrence Schiller shares a video from the Mailer Center’s 2013 fellowship and workshop program in Brooklyn Heights as applications open for 2014.
- 12 — Harvard Review Online reviews Mind of an Outlaw, praising Phillip Sipiora’s decade-by-decade arrangement. Harvard Review
- 12 — Nerve revisits its 2000 interview with Mailer on ethics and pornography, conducted by email through his assistant: “Ethics and Pornography: An Interview.”
- 18 — The Society’s own Barry Leeds publishes a memoir, A Moveable Beast, with chapters on Norman and Norris Church Mailer.
- 23 — The Paris Review recalls the 1963 survey a sixteen-year-old sent to 150 authors, Mailer among them, asking whether they planted symbols in their fiction. Read it.
- 25 — Taschen offers a limited edition of Mailer’s Marilyn. More
- 27 — The Society remembers Deborah Martinson, scholar, friend, and member of the Board.
May
- 7 — Board member Robert Begiebing publishes a memoir, A Berkshire Boyhood.
- 26 — Stephen Borkowski photographs the flag placed on Mailer’s grave in Provincetown for Memorial Day, a town tradition for veterans.
June
- 14 — Mailer’s review essay “A Man Half Full,” which opens with several paragraphs from his own Cannibals and Christians, recirculates. The New York Review of Books
July
- 13 — A plea to return to the original meaning of “factoid,” the word Mailer coined. The Atlantic
- 15 — A look back at the Utah-filmed TV movie of The Executioner’s Song and the true story of Gary Gilmore. The Salt Lake Tribune
- 20 — The Selected Letters of Norman Mailer is available for preorder; Lennon posts his appearances on his website.
- 20 — J. Michael Lennon reads from Norman Mailer: A Double Life at the Provincetown Public Library on August 15, after an August 4 talk at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox.
- 23 — An essay on how cool became such a big deal traces Mailer’s hipster to Anatole Broyard’s essays on the subject. Humanities
August
- 11 — The Boston Globe tells the story behind Norman Mailer: A Double Life, ahead of Lennon’s Provincetown reading. The Boston Globe
- 29 — Stills from Matthew Barney’s six-hour River of Fundament, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February with music by Jonathan Bepler. See them.
September
- 5 — Taschen publishes an illustrated XL edition of “Superman Comes to the Supermarket,” Mailer’s 1960 Esquire profile of JFK.
October
- 9 — The Society shares a prospectus for the Digital Mailer Project, a digital humanities effort to promote Mailer’s legacy.
- 12 — The Dead Authors Podcast resurrects Lord Byron and Norman Mailer for one episode. The Dead Authors Podcast
- 19 — A literary map of the best book for every state gives Utah to Mailer. Brooklyn Magazine
- 20 — Archival video of Mailer explaining the philosophy of the hipster in 1960. CBC Digital Archives
- 24 — Letters of Note shares one of Mailer’s letters: “Don’t ever call me a liberal.” Letters of Note
November
- 11 — Jerry Tallmer, who brought arts coverage to the Village Voice in its earliest days and created the Obie Awards, dies at 93. The New York Times
- 12 — Richard Stratton, writer, filmmaker, and onetime smuggler whom Mailer befriended, publishes Smuggler’s Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia.
- 14 — D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus seek a home for their counterculture film archive. The New York Times
- 16 — In an interview, Richard Stratton recalls that the government wanted his help convicting Mailer, his friend and mentor. Bookstr
December
- 24 — Monica Lewinsky reflects on her relationship with Mailer: “Happy F**kin’ Birthday (with Apologies to Norman Mailer).” Vanity Fair
- 31 — A review of the Selected Letters finds the great American novel Mailer kept getting sidetracked from. The New Yorker