Letter to Adeline Lubell Naiman
A warm letter to 'Lub' — the editor who had championed The Naked and the Dead at Little, Brown in 1947 — reporting the serial gamble, his life with the pregnant Beverly Bentley, and the imminent Presidential Papers, of which he rates only the final piece ('The Metaphysics of the Belly') important.
To Adeline Lubell Naiman (“Lub”), the editor who in 1947 had argued for The Naked and the Dead at Little, Brown, Mailer describes the “break-neck venture” of the serial — eight installments sold to Dial and Dell for $125,000 before a word was written — and the fear that the novel “got to be fairly good or I’ll be ambushed.” He shares personal news: he has been living since March with the actress Beverly Bentley, now pregnant, and will marry her once his divorce from Jean Campbell comes through. He promises a copy of The Presidential Papers and recommends she look up Malaquais, then living in Wellesley.
Related pages
- Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969 | Adeline Lubell Naiman | Beverly Bentley | An American Dream