The "Big Bite"
First installment of 'The Big Bite,' Mailer's fourteen-month monthly Esquire column (November 1962-December 1963). The November 1962 column comments on the passing of Marilyn Monroe (5 August 1962) and Ernest Hemingway (2 July 1961). Reprinted in The Presidential Papers (63.37, partial) and 13.1. See 62.19, 63.2-63.13.
The “Big Bite.” Esquire, November 1962, 134. First of a series of 14 monthly columns (November 1962–December 1963).
Mailer’s Big Bite column launches in Esquire’s November 1962 issue with commentary on the passing of Marilyn Monroe (5 August 1962) and Ernest Hemingway (2 July 1961). The column will run monthly through December 1963 (62.18, 62.19, 63.2 through 63.13 — fourteen installments total), making Mailer one of the most-read American cultural columnists of the period, and providing the running thread that The Presidential Papers will gather. Rpt: Presidential Papers (63.37, partial), 13.1.
The column’s title — The Big Bite — Mailer adopts to signal the ambition of monthly columns at Esquire on the largest American cultural and political subjects: the dead celebrities of the August preceding (Monroe), the dead writers of the prior summer (Hemingway), the new political year. Mailer’s contract with Esquire runs alongside the Commentary contract for “Responses and Reactions” (62.22, December 1962), so that from December 1962 forward Mailer is publishing two columns per month — one in Esquire, one in Commentary — through October–December 1963.
Related pages
- 1962 | Esquire | The "Big Bite" | The Presidential Papers
- The "Big Bite" (62.19) | The "Big Bite" (63.2) | The "Big Bite" (63.13)
- The "Big Bite" (62.18) | Responses and Reactions I (62.22)