Norman Mailer on LBJ
The Realist, no. 60 (June 1965), 1, 10-15; front-page opening transcribed from a scan provided by Jerry Lucas (raw/images/works/65-14.jpg).
Norman Mailer on LBJ
The Realist, no. 60 (June 1965), p. 1 (continued pp. 10–15).
Years ago in Austin, Texas, not far from the LBJ ranch, even less far from the radio station owned by Lady Bird Johnson, at a time when our President was still Vice President, I read a few lines I had written about Lyndon Johnson to an audience at the University of Texas:
“Johnson had compromised too many contradictions, and now the contradictions were in his face: when he smiled, the corners of his mouth squeezed gloom; when he was pious, his eyes twinkled irony; when he spoke in a righteous tone, he looked corrupt; when he jested, the ham in his jowls looked to quiver. He was not convincing.”
That Texas audience laughed as if I were William Faulkner talking about the Snopes family.
Years later, getting ready to write about Johnson again, I endeavored to come closer:
“The private personality of LBJ, as reported by the authority of the best gossip, is different from his public presence. In private, one is told, he is not too unlike Broderick Crawford in All the King’s Men, roaring, smarting, bellowing, stabbing fingers on advisors’ chests, hugging his daughters, enjoying his food, belching, burping, mean and unforgiving, vindictive, generous, ebullient, vain, suddenly depressed, then roguish, then overbearing, suddenly modest again only to bellow and fart once more.”
[The column continues on pp. 10–15; not yet transcribed.]