The "Big Bite"
Fourteenth and final installment of The Big Bite — closing Mailer's fourteen-month run (November 1962-December 1963). Comment on the 14 August civil rights march on Washington, followed by Mailer's public announcement that he will attempt to write a serial novel for Esquire over the next eight months: 'One is tempted to call this novel An American Dream.' See 64.2-64.9, 65.7. Reprinted in Mailer Review (2009), 11-16, with introductory note by J. Michael Lennon.
The “Big Bite.” Esquire, December 1963, 22, 24, 26. Column — fourteenth and final installment of The Big Bite, closing the fourteen-month run that began with 62.18 in November 1962.
The column comments on the 14 August 1963 civil rights march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (the Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech), and ends with Mailer’s public announcement that he will attempt to write a serial novel for Esquire over the next eight months. He ends the column: “One is tempted to call this novel An American Dream.”
This announcement is the public threshold of the Mailer / Meredith / Dial Press / MGM arrangement: Meredith had become Mailer’s literary agent in the fall of 1963 and had successfully negotiated the sale of An American Dream to Dial Press and the movie rights to MGM (per the published Days, p. 354). The Esquire serial would begin in January 1964 (64.2) and continue monthly through August 1964 (64.9); the Dial Press hardcover would appear, revised, on 15 March 1965 (65.7).
See 64.2–64.9, 65.7. Rpt: Mailer Review (2009), 11–16, with introductory note by J. Michael Lennon.
Related pages
- 1963 | Esquire | The "Big Bite" | An American Dream | Scott Meredith | Dial Press
- An American Dream: A New Novel Serialized Exclusively in Esquire by Norman Mailer; Installment One: The Harbors of the Moon (64.2) | Installment VIII: At the Lion and the Serpent (64.9)