The Language of Men
Mailer's first story for Esquire — drawn from his experience as an Army cook in occupied Japan in 1946 — and, by Lennon's count, "the first of more than 40 contributions to the magazine with which Mailer has been most closely identified." One of the cluster of stories Mailer wrote in 1952–53 (with 52.2, 52.3) and later gathered into Advertisements for Myself.
“The Language of Men.” Esquire, April 1953, 61, 115–17.
A story based on Mailer’s service as an Army cook in occupied Japan in 1946, before his discharge. Lennon records it as “the first of more than 40 contributions to the magazine with which Mailer has been most closely identified”.
Mailer groups it with the other short fiction of the period — “The Paper House” (52.2) and “The Dead Gook” (52.3) — and reflects, in the prefatory “advertisement” to these stories in Advertisements for Myself (59.13), that he takes “no great pride in them, because they are respectable. They make no attempt to raise the house an inch or two.”
Rpt: Various Temptations (New York: Avon, 1955, softcover); The Armchair Esquire, ed. Arnold Gingrich and L. Rust Hills (New York: Putnam’s, 1958); Advertisements for Myself (59.13); 67.11; 68.32; 82.19.
Related pages
- 1953 | Esquire
- The Paper House | The Dead Gook | Backstage with Esky
- Advertisements for Myself (59.13) | The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (67.11) | A Selection from the Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (68.32)