Norman Mailer: Works and Days

1964-06-02-letter-to-mrs-jose-casanova

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 Mrs. Casanova,1

I’m finishing the novel now,2 so this will excuse, I hope, the briefness of this note, and also will give you in some forty-five or fifty days the opportunity to read the rest of the book, and tell me whether you think it comes together as a novel with overall meaning, or is just an elongated jeu des mots. Please give me your reactions to it.

Yours sincerely,

Norman

Editorial notes (J. Michael Lennon)

Footnotes

  1. Mrs. Casanova was a Mailer fan. For the length of his career, he has faithfully answered serious letters from admirers. ↩

  2. He was late with the long last installment of 19,972 words, which was due at the end of the third week of May for Esquire ’s August issue, but turned it in shortly after this letter. Esquire had held the presses and saved space for the eighth installment, but it was so long that the second half had to be set in smaller type. ↩

Referenced by 1

Letters

Source: 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).
Rights: cleared
Last updated: 2026-06-08