1980

In April The Executioner's Song wins the Pulitzer Prize. In June Mailer brings Jack Henry Abbott's prison prose before the public in the New York Review of Books. In November comes the famous marital shuffle - he divorces Beverly Bentley, marries and divorces Carol Stevens, and marries Norris Church on the 11th - and the publication of Of Women and Their Elegance, his 'imaginary memoir' of Marilyn Monroe. He plays Stanford White in Milos Forman's Ragtime and takes part in the Munich documentary The Sanction to Write.

Spring — the Pulitzer

15 April — The Executioner’s Song (79.14) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, making Mailer the only writer to win Pulitzers for both fiction and nonfiction (80.5, 80.5a): “Prizes are like beautiful women, and the Pulitzer is more attractive than most.” Through the winter and spring he kept answering for the book — the Bezner, Kakutani, and Aldridge interviews (80.1, 80.4, 80.10) — and answered Germaine Greer’s review with a defense of Lawrence Schiller (80.2).

June — Jack Henry Abbott

26 June — In “In Prison” (80.9), Mailer brought Jack Henry Abbott‘s prison prose before the public for the first time, in the New York Review of Books — the start of the sponsorship that would produce In the Belly of the Beast (1981) and end in catastrophe.

November — the marital shuffle and Marilyn

In a single week Mailer divorced Beverly Bentley, married and divorced Carol Stevens, and on 11 November married Norris Church (80.13). On 26 November Simon and Schuster published Of Women and Their Elegance (80.15), his “imaginary memoir” of Marilyn Monroe illustrated with Milton Greene’s photographs — defended in the “Before the Literary Bar” self-interview (80.14).

Film — Ragtime and Munich

Mailer played the architect Stanford White in Milos Forman‘s Ragtime (80.20), filmed in London with Norris Church in a small role, and took part in the Munich documentary Norman Mailer: The Sanction to Write, alongside Hanna Schygulla.

He also reissued his collected short fiction in hardcover (80.23), wrote an introduction for Abbie Hoffman‘s autobiography (80.26), and appealed to Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy to end their feud (80.6).

Related pages

• 1979 | 1981
• Of Women and Their Elegance (80.15) | Jack Henry Abbott | Norris Church Mailer
• The Executioner's Song (79.14) | Mailer on Gilmore (80.1) | Do Facts and Fiction Mix? (80.4) | An Interview with Norman Mailer (Aldridge) (80.10) | Letter to the Editor (Hollywood Reporter) (80.2) | In Prison (80.9) | Before the Literary Bar (80.14) | Introduction to Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture (80.26) | An Appeal to Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy (80.6)

Cite as: /days/1980
Last updated: 2026-06-05