Letter to Don Carpenter (15 January 1964)
Having just finished the fourth installment ('the serial has me close to pissing blood'), Mailer thanks the West Coast novelist for his praise but invites genuine criticism — 'one's friends are only hurting one's sense of reality if they neglect to tell you' — and sends regards to Michael McClure.
To the West Coast novelist Don Carpenter, written just after finishing the fourth installment — “the serial has me close to pissing blood.” Mailer accepts Carpenter’s praise but presses for candor: a good beginning is one thing, “the keeping up” (Henry James’s phrase) another, and “if something is not good enough one’s friends are only hurting one’s sense of reality if they neglect to tell you.” He asks Carpenter to pass his regards to Michael McClure, whose Meat Science Essays he wants to discuss.