1954
A pivotal year. Mailer makes his first appearance in Dissent (54.1, 1 April) and joins its editorial board, where he will remain until the mid-1980s, publishing three pieces in the magazine's first volume (54.1–54.3). He marries Adele Morales on 19 April and completes The Deer Park in the spring — only to have Rinehart suppress the novel in November over six lines of sexual description. After six further rejections, Walter Minton of Putnam's accepts it. On 1 December Mailer begins "Lipton's," a marijuana journal that will swell to some 112,000 words and feed directly into "The White Negro."
Spring — Dissent and the editorial board
In the spring Mailer makes his first appearance in Dissent with “The Meaning of ‘Western Defense’” (54.1), a greatly revised version of his 1951 essay “The Defence of the Compass” (51.4). The piece runs in the magazine’s second number, issued 1 April 1954; Mailer joins the Dissent editorial board the same year and remains a member until the mid-1980s. Two more Dissent pieces follow in the first volume: the letter “In Re: Sidney Hook” (54.2) in the summer and the review essay “David Riesman Reconsidered” (54.3) in the autumn.
Editorial note: ProjectMailer’s Important Dates dates Mailer’s Dissent contributing-editorship to 1953 (through 1961). Lennon’s Works entry 54.1 is explicit that both the first appearance and the board membership begin in 1954 (board service “until the mid-80s”); this register follows Lennon. See the corresponding note on Days 1953.
Spring — The Deer Park completed; marriage to Adele
In the spring Mailer completes The Deer Park, the novel he had begun in 1952 out of his June 1951 Palm Springs trip with Mickey Knox.
19 April — Mailer marries Adele Morales at City Hall in New York. The couple move into a duplex at 320 East 55th Street.
November — Rinehart suppresses The Deer Park
November — With publication less than three months away (the Rinehart edition was set for 14 February 1955), Rinehart stops The Deer Park over six lines describing a sexual act — in the Important Dates phrasing, “six not very explicit lines about the sex of an old producer and a call girl.” Six other publishers reject the novel before Walter Minton of G. P. Putnam’s Sons accepts it in early 1955. The episode ends Mailer’s relationship with Rinehart, publisher of his first two novels, and becomes the centerpiece of his later essay “The Mind of an Outlaw” in Advertisements for Myself.
1 December — “Lipton’s”
1 December — Mailer begins “Lipton’s,” an introspective marijuana journal that will run to roughly 112,000 words. Its preoccupations feed directly into “The White Negro” (1957); the journal itself was published in full only in 2024, as Lipton’s, A Marijuana Journal (Arcade).
Related pages
- 1953 | 1955
- The Meaning of 'Western Defense' | In Re: Sidney Hook | David Riesman Reconsidered
- Dissent | Adele Morales | Rinehart & Company | The Deer Park
- The Defence of the Compass (51.4)