In 1962, as a teenager, I became
addicted to Norman
Mailer's essays in Esquire. Inspired by provocative pieces
like
his profile of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, I sent two essays to the
Buffalo News and received two checks for my efforts. A decade
later, I was a professional writer, but my accomplishments unfavorably
compared to Mailer's. At 25 he had written The Naked and the Dead.
Hoping to learn how to put a novel
together, I
enrolled in Ph.D. program in English at the University of
Nevada-Reno. Instead, I learned how to take a novel
apart.
Nonetheless, my writing improved as a result of my exposure to
literature and my editorial work for the campus magazine and
newspaper. I profiled visiting writers, believing that if I
could
get a fix on what they were like as human beings, I too could write.
In came Nikki Giovanni, Ezekiel
Mphahlele, William Stafford, Gary Snyder, and
Erica
Jong. Out came my recorder. I posed questions over
pizza
with radical attorney and author William Kunstler, over lunch with poet
Thom Gunn, and over dinner with novelist Wallace Stegner. I
learned that even famous writers chafed with
self-dissatisfaction.
One female author confided, "My goal is to be on the cover of Time."
Celebrity Talk Isn't Cheap
In the spring of 1973, Mailer promoted
Marilyn, his
biography of Marilyn Monroe. As president of the Graduate
Student
Association, I had a budget to bring in speakers. Mailer's
$2,000
fee was only a little less than a year's teaching stipend for me.
Mailer's representative sent a
contract. It
had a clause that stipulated the author had to give the student
literary magazine an interview. A week before his visit
Mailer
changed his mind. I have a signed contract, I told his rep
and
hung up.
The rep called back. The
interview was
on. But the way, Mailer wanted to visit a few
casinos.
Could someone show him around Reno?
Someone could.
Stranger in the Sagebrush
State
I knew Mailer would fill the gum
bleachers at UNR as
much for his notoriety as his novels. He'd stabbed one of his
wives with a penknife and had fist fights with friends and strangers.
One the evening of October 4, 1973, I
met Mailer in
a corridor outside his dressing room. He wore black boots, a
blue
blazer, and a best with six bright buttons. A huge knot in
his
tie scrunched his fleshy neck. His thick and curly hair
contradicted late 60's photographs displaying his thinning crown.
I walked him to the center of the
gym. He gave
his talk. He doubted Marilyn Monroe had killed
herself. The
starlet, reputed to have slept with U.S. Attorney General Robert
Kennedy, had been the victim of a sinister conspiracy.
His audience cheered. His only opposition came from a woman
who
chided him for sexist views.
Afterwards, a rangy man about 25
confronted the author and
asked him to read a manuscript.
Mailer had a pat answer.
He
couldn't read unpublished work lest he later be accused to
plagiarism. The man jammed the pages in Mailer's
chest,
making the writer reflexively take them. I blushed, embarrassed for the
youth who knew no shame. I thought Mailer
might
throw a punch, but he clutched the bundle of words to his
chest.
When Mailer reached
the student union for a brief reception, he dumped the novel in the
trash so hard that the can rang.
Advertisement for Himself
My interview with Mailer took place in a
faculty
member's home around 10 p.m. Three professors helped pitch
questions. [See Norman Mailer's The
Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing for an excerpt from
the interview.]
As soon as the recorder went on, Mailer
vibrated
with energy. I asked if Marilyn was representative of a
period of
American history. He thought not, saying the fact he'd
written
the book in only two months had kept him from minutely examining the
effect of America on Hollywood and Hollywood on America. "Why
I
got interested in Marilyn was more a matter of psychology,"
said
Mailer. "I was interested in the psychology of the celebrity,
the
psychology of insanity, and the psychology of the actor."
Mailer had not published a novel since
1967, and
would not finish another until 1983, his dreadful Ancient
Evenings. He acknowledged that the novel was an imperiled
literary form. "I think the culture is fragmented," he
said. "The character of 20th century existence is to be
fragmented, and it's gotten down to the point where those of us who sip
from fragment to fragment are the ones who thrive, at least in a
limited way."
Midway through our 45-minute chat,
Mailer swirled
ice in a glass gone dry. I offered to make him a drink, but
he
declined, asking me to lead him to the makeshift kitchen bar.
Drink he hand, he pointed to the copy of The Naked and the
Dead
under my arm.
"First edition?"
When I nodded, he pulled out a pen. The Siege of Reno
A little after 11 p.m., I hopped into
Mailer’s
rental car to give him a Reno mini-tour. He sat in the back
with
his assistant, Susan. She wore her abundant black hair in a
shag
cut. I had studied her face while she dozed in a chair during
the
interview. Now we talked and she said she had been a graduate
student at Kent State University.
Mailer forgotten, the journalist in me
sprayed her
with questions about May 4, 1970, the day National Guard troops opened
fire during a student protest.
Mailer bristled. Maybe the
three or four
doubles he drank made him see himself in competition for the deference
I now paid his lovely assistant. Maybe he had given me $2,000
worth of effort and would give no more. Because I am not the
world's most intuitive male, I cannot say what darkened his mood.
He wanted the drive over. He
wanted casino action.
The Leave-taking
At the interview, Mailer had known that
an
unsophisticated like me would ruin his drink, but he failed to
anticipate that I'd take him to a low-rent casino whose clientele
wouldn't recognize him. As if talking to my aunt from
Buffalo, I
assured him that this tacky casino had the best payouts in town on slot
machines.
Mailer downshifted from edgy to
angry. I saw
then that he wanted--demanded--to be seen, to preen, to glow like the
neon lights of Reno.
Red-checked, I led him out of the lower
depths to
Harrah's, a high-dollar club in sight of an arch over the main street
reading "Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World." He
reclaimed the car keys, strutted into the casino with Susan, and left
me to invent my way home.
Image Isn't Everything
I never finished my doctorate.
An
Esquire editor phoned the UNR publications office in search
of a
writer to contribute to a college issue. I
answered. The
publication of this short article inspired me to leave Reno, dead
broke, and to camp illegally on southern California beached until I
made enough money writing article and selling plasma to afford an
apartment. My byline would soon appear in GQ, Human Behavior,
and
the Saturday Evening Post.
Much of this work was
imitative. I had deduced
from observing Mailer that writers needed a persona, a manufactured
star presence. Some article of mine sounded like George
Plimpton,
some like Hunter S. Thompson. A few, no surprise, echoed
Mailer.
In time, however, the skills I'd learned
in graduate
school helped me analyze my own work, a necessary first step before I
could create fresh-sounding prose.
Today I am two years shy of 50--the age
Mailer was
when I met him. I've long since ceased comparing my career to
his.
During our interview, I had asked him
what he
thought about author-activist Abbie Hoffman's decision to flee justice
after selling cocaine to an undercover officer.
"Well, we're running into it, aren't
we?" said the
author whose work made the cover of Time in 1973. "There are
no
heroes left."
He was displaying wit, but in retrospect
I find his
words sad. Writers need humanity, not cynicism. I
gave
Mailer a ride. He drove off-course on his own.
First published in Arts
Indiana magazine. See also Henry Nuwer et al interview with Mailer, in Brushfire
(Nevada-Reno), 1973