1964-02-11-letter-to-harvey-breit
Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969, ed. J. Michael Lennon (Sligo Press, 2004); transcription via the An American Dream Expanded digital edition (Project Mailer).
Dear Harvey,1
Just a note. I’ve been down in the mines working on my novel, five installments now done, three to go—mortal terror all around that I will run out of gas. I must say, each installment gets worse than the one before. Then when I finish, there’s a snow bank of letters around, all the mail that’s accumulated during the month. So I send this off to you in the ill humor of being written out, smoked out, hung over, and in a bitch of a mood about the novel. But I write to you anyway because I wanted to say hello and tell you that we miss you and hope you’ll be back soon.
Outside of work everything’s going along fairly well and New York seems quiet. I hope Mrs. Lowry’s agreeable.
Editorial notes (J. Michael Lennon)
Footnotes
-
Mailer became friendly with Harvey Breit, a reporter and novelist who spent summers on Cape Cod. Breit profiled him in the New York Times in June 1951. ↩