2004
At 81, walking on canes, Mailer spends an election year campaigning in print against the Iraq War and the Bush administration; publishes the Playboy 'Immodest Proposals' platform and a run of interviews, holds two extended father-son conversations with John Buffalo Mailer, and sees J. Michael Lennon's edition of his An American Dream letters into print.
Now eighty-one and walking on two canes, Mailer spends the year as an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War and the Bush administration, living year-round in Provincetown with Norris.
Winter
In the Harvard Advocate’s memorial number Mailer publishes a tribute to George Plimpton (04.1), who had died the previous September, calling him “the best gentleman most of us ever got to know.”
January
Playboy’s fiftieth-anniversary issue carries “Immodest Proposals” (04.2), a long essay laying out a platform for the Democrats in the coming election.
Spring
Mailer takes his anti-war argument on the road: a talk at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in April (reading from Why Are We at War?; reported online) and an appearance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House introduced by Robert F. Lucid (04.5). On 1 April Nation Books publishes Mickey Knox‘s memoir with Mailer’s preface (04.4). In June he gives a long life-retrospective interview to the Academy of Achievement (04.6).
Summer
On the eve of the Democratic National Convention Mailer is interviewed by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! (04.9a) and reported urging support for John Kerry in the Provincetown Banner (04.9). In August Sligo Press publishes Norman Mailer’s Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969 (04.7), J. Michael Lennon’s limited edition of seventy-six letters.
Fall
As the Republican convention comes to New York, New York runs the father-son cover conversation “Father to Son: What I’ve Learned about Rage” (04.8) between Mailer and John Buffalo Mailer. In mid-September Mailer reads his poems at the 92nd Street Y in conversation with J. Michael Lennon (04.11); his six-word story appears in Black Book’s Hemingway Challenge (04.10). For the election he contributes to the New York Review of Books symposium (04.13), and on 13 November a Norman Mailer Society event in Provincetown is recounted on the Village Voice website (04.14).
December
Two more conversations close the year: a second father-son exchange with John Buffalo in Playboy (04.15) and a film talk with the director James Toback in V Life (04.16). The marijuana interview with Richard Stratton for High Times (04.12) also appears in the November–December issue.
Related pages
- 2003 | 2005
- Letters on An American Dream | Father to Son: What I've Learned about Rage | John Buffalo Mailer | Mickey Knox
- [Comment on the passing of George Plimpton] (04.1) | Immodest Proposals (04.2) | Preface to The Good, the Bad, and the Dolce Vita (04.4) | Interview: Norman Mailer (Academy of Achievement) (04.6) | Norman Mailer: Why I Am Protesting the Presidency (04.9a) | Mailer Takes Goodman to Task Over Election Issues (04.9) | Hemingway Challenge (six-word story) (04.10) | The Election and America's Future (04.13) | The Lion on Canes (04.14)
Referenced by 19
Works
- [Comment on the passing of George Plimpton]
- A Certain Grim Pleasure: Norman Mailer Speaks with James Toback about Film
- Are You Open-Minded Enough for Norman Mailer on Iraq?
- Father to Son: What I've Learned about Rage
- Hemingway Challenge (six-word story)
- Immodest Proposals
- Interview: Norman Mailer (Academy of Achievement)
- Mailer Takes Goodman to Task Over Election Issues
- Mailer: Why He is Still at War
- Norman Mailer on the Media and the Message
- Norman Mailer: On Pot
- Norman Mailer: Poetic Lion in Winter
- Norman Mailer: Why I Am Protesting the Presidency
- Preface to The Good, the Bad, and the Dolce Vita
- Reflections on Courage, Morality and Sexual Pleasure
- The Election and America's Future
- The Lion on Canes