Great in the Hay
A Hollywood satire Mailer dates to 1950, first published within Advertisements for Myself (1959). A jealous producer hires a detective to discover why his near-twin rival has the reputation of being "great in the hay." Mailer noted the beginnings of The Deer Park in it.
“Great in the Hay.” In Advertisements for Myself, 392–93. New York: Putnam, 6 November 1959.
A jealous producer named Bert hires a detective to learn why his near-twin rival Al is reputed “great in the hay.” Mailer’s Advertisement dates the piece to 1950, “when I was in Hollywood,” and notes that “the beginnings of The Deer Park can be seen here.” Mailer lost the manuscript and recovered the title only when the actor Mickey Knox mentioned he had been using it for years as a party bit. First published within Advertisements for Myself (59.13); reprinted in The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (67.11).
Related pages
Editorial notes
- The story had no separate first publication: it first appeared inside Advertisements for Myself and carries no separate Lennon number (Lennon documents it within the AFM entry, 59.13). Given a standalone Work page so its cross-vault link resolves one-to-one.
- Cross-vault: Norman Mailer’s Short Fiction treats it as short fiction (
nmsf-id: great-in-the-hay).