The "Big Bite"
Eighth installment of The Big Bite. Important remarks on the decline of the novel, including specific comment on Gore Vidal, Vance Bourjaily, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Reprinted (with minor changes) as the first part of 'Some Children of the Goddess' in Cannibals and Christians (66.11), pairing with the major July essay 63.8.
The “Big Bite.” Esquire, June 1963, 23–24, 28, 32. Column. Important remarks on the decline of the novel, including specific comment on Gore Vidal, Vance Bourjaily, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Rpt: as the first part of “Some Children of the Goddess” (with a few minor changes) in Cannibals and Christians (66.11). The June Big Bite column thus pairs structurally with the major July essay 63.8 — together they form Mailer’s longest sustained essay on his contemporaries before the late-decade boxing-and-film phase.
Related pages
- 1963 | Esquire | Some Children of the Goddess: Further Evaluations of the Talent in the Room | Cannibals and Christians