Wonder Boy Novelist
Horace Sutton profile-interview with Mailer for Cue, focused on the rapid success of The Naked and the Dead; later quoted in Current Biography.
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
“Wonder Boy Novelist.” Article-interview by Horace Sutton. Cue, 21 August 1948, 17.
A short piece built around the success of 48.2; extensively drawn upon for Current Biography (48.8).
The piece reports that Mailer and Bea had returned from Paris “a few days ago” at the invitation of Lillian Hellman, who was “preparing [NAD] for the stage” with the adaptation “scheduled to appear in February” — an adaptation that never materialized. Sutton preserves several often-quoted Mailer self-descriptions: his height (5′8½″), weight (140 lbs.), bank balance ($40,000), his description of working in Paris “at a dirty gray heat,” and his reaction to Robert Ruark’s review (“My first reaction was that I never wanted to write again, it seemed so futile, so silly. I might as well spend my time doodling.”).
A scan of the Cue clipping is at media/scans/1948-08-21-wonder-boy-novelist.jpg; the full transcription (rights pending) is held at wiki/texts/1948-08-21-wonder-boy-novelist.md — see full text (rights pending).
Related pages
- The Naked and the Dead | 1948
- Lillian Hellman | Beatrice Silverman | Paris, France
- Norman Mailer (48.8)