1965

The year of An American Dream: Mailer testifies for Burroughs's Naked Lunch at its Boston obscenity trial in January; the revised novel is published by Dial Press on 15 March (Deutsch in the UK on 26 April) to sharply divided reviews and strong sales. Mailer hosts a victory party for boxer Jose Torres in March, visits Alaska in April, speaks against the Vietnam War at Berkeley on 21 May and at a Harvard teach-in in July, and addresses the Modern Language Association on the American novel in December.

Norman Mailer, 1965

January

Early January — Mailer testifies on behalf of William Burroughs‘s novel Naked Lunch at its Boston obscenity trial, calling Burroughs “possibly the most talented writer in America.” His testimony is reported on 13 January (65.1) and published in full as “The Boston Trial of Naked Lunch” (65.13).

January 27 — Mailer writes to his Japanese translator, Eiichi Yamanishi, that Warner Brothers has purchased the film rights to An American Dream for a reported $200,000.

January 31 — “Cities Higher than Mountains” (65.2), Mailer’s essay on architecture and the “Vertical City,” appears in the New York Times Magazine — the first of several pieces he would write for the Times.

March

March 14 — Tom Wolfe‘s hostile review of An American Dream appears on the cover of Book Week (Washington Post), a day before publication.

March 15 — Official publication date of An American Dream by Dial Press (270 pp., $4.95), where E. L. Doctorow is one of Mailer’s editors. The Dial Press hosts a publication reception at the Village Vanguard in New York. During National Book Awards week, Mailer holds forth at a series of press conferences (65.4, 65.6, 65.8, 65.10), praising Saul Bellow’s Herzog and grouping himself with the “moral nihilists’ wing” of Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Terry Southern.

March 19 — “The Big Comeback of Norman Mailer,” a positive review by John W. Aldridge, appears in Life. Mailer later pays to reprint the heart of it in the spring Partisan Review (“A Small Public Notice,” 65.9) to “accompany” Elizabeth Hardwick‘s negative review.

March 20 — The Saturday Review runs Mailer on its cover, asking “Is Norman Mailer’s New Novel a Literary Hoax?”

March 27 — An American Dream rises to number four on the best-seller list of the Chicago Daily News.

Late March — Following José Torres‘s defeat of Willie Pastrano for the light-heavyweight boxing championship on 30 March, Mailer hosts the victory party for him at his Brooklyn Heights apartment; the two become lifelong friends.

Dick Schaap, "Grace Under Pressure," New York Herald Tribune, 1 April 1965, on Mailer's party for José Torres

April

April — Mailer travels to Alaska for a four-day visit, addressing the Alaska legislature and the University of Alaska and flying over Mt. McKinley in a small plane — experiences he would draw on for his 1967 novel Why Are We in Vietnam?

April 11 — The novel rises to number eight on the best-seller list of the New York Times Book Review; by 18 April it stands at number three.

April 20–26 — Mailer is in London to promote the British edition of An American Dream, published by André Deutsch on 26 April. David Leitch’s long interview “Norman Mailer’s Night Out” (65.11a) appears in The Sunday Times on 25 April.

May

May 21 — Mailer speaks against the Vietnam War at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, before an audience of over 10,000. The speech is transcribed as “Norman Mailer on LBJ” (65.14, Realist, June) and reported in the anti-communist weekly Tocsin (65.12, 65.18).

July

July 15 — Mailer speaks at a Harvard teach-in against the Vietnam War, organized by Martin Peretz, alongside Staughton Lynd and others (65.15, 65.16): “A future death of the spirit lies close and heavy upon American life.”

Late July — Mailer travels to Puerto Rico for the José Torres–Tom McNeeley prizefight and meets with Muhammad Ali, whom he arm-wrestles in San Juan (65.17).

Fall

Fall — Mailer contributes to a Partisan Review symposium, “On Vietnam” (65.19), whose “Mailer’s Reply” prefigures the argument of The Armies of the Night (68.8).

September 24 — Brock Brower‘s “In This Corner, Norman Mailer” (65.20), the first major biographical article on Mailer, appears in Life. Mailer complains of being misquoted in a letter to the editor on 15 October (65.21).

October–November — Mailer endorses John Lindsay for Mayor of New York (“Norman Mailer on Lindsay and the City,” 65.22) and trades barbs with William F. Buckley Jr. in the New York Post (65.23) and the Village Voice (65.24): “Dear Bill, Be a swell, don’t sue.”

December

Late December — Mailer addresses the Modern Language Association meeting in Chicago on the state of the American novel, before a large audience. His talk is published in the March 1966 Commentary.

Context

U.S. troops arrive in force in Vietnam in March, escalating the war that increasingly dominates Mailer’s public life. Malcolm X is assassinated on 21 February; the Voting Rights Act is signed on 6 August; the Watts riots break out in Los Angeles on 11 August; and the National Endowment for the Arts is established on 29 September.

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Last updated: 2026-05-30