An American Dream: A New Novel Serialized Exclusively in Esquire by Norman Mailer; Installment One: The Harbors of the Moon
First installment of An American Dream, the eight-part Esquire serialization (January-August 1964). Mailer announced the serial in the December 1963 Big Bite (63.13): 'One is tempted to call this novel An American Dream.' Mailer took the title of this chapter from a poem about Provincetown in Deaths for the Ladies (62.3); he then reprinted the poem after his preface to the Franklin Library edition of Tough Guys Don't Dance (84.17); and again as the final selection of Time of Our Time (98.7). Revised for the Dial Press first edition of An American Dream (15 March 1965, 65.7); the concluding portion of installment VIII (64.9) is broken off in the novel as 'Epilogue: The Harbors of the Moon Again.' See 64.9.
“An American Dream: A New Novel Serialized Exclusively in Esquire by Norman Mailer; Installment One: The Harbors of the Moon.” Esquire, January 1964, 77–81, 131–32.
First installment of the eight-part Esquire serialization of An American Dream (January–August 1964, 64.2–64.9). The serial was announced by Mailer at the end of the final Big Bite column (63.13, December 1963 Esquire): “One is tempted to call this novel An American Dream.” The serial-publication arrangement was struck between Mailer (through new agent Scott Meredith) and Esquire editor Harold Hayes in late summer 1963, alongside the Dial Press book deal and Warner Brothers film-rights option that would follow.
Title and the Provincetown poem
Mailer took the title of this chapter — The Harbors of the Moon — from a poem about Provincetown in Deaths for the Ladies (62.3). He then reprinted the poem after his preface to the Franklin Library edition of Tough Guys Don’t Dance (84.17, 1984), and again as the final selection of The Time of Our Time (98.7, 1998).
Composition pace and revision
Per the published Lennon Days (p. 354) and the An American Dream Expanded Timeline: Mailer “completes chapters six weeks before they appear” — writing each installment under monthly Esquire deadlines. The first installment was turned in to Esquire in mid-October 1963. Mailer would revise the Esquire version substantially for the Dial Press book edition (15 March 1965, 65.7); the concluding portion of installment VIII (64.9) is broken off in the novel as “Epilogue: The Harbors of the Moon Again” — closing the novel with the same title that opened it.
A summary by Esquire editors of the first installment is found in the February 1964 issue, p. 125 (within installment II’s apparatus).
Reprintings
The serial text appears in book form, revised, in An American Dream (65.7, 15 March 1965).
Related pages
- 1964 | Esquire | The "Big Bite" | Installment Two: A Messenger from the Casino | An American Dream
- An American Dream (65.7) | Norman Mailer's "American Dream": Superman Returns (65.3) | The "Big Bite" (63.13) | On the Scholarly Trail of the New Revisionists (83.6) | A Piece of Harlot's Ghost (88.5)
- 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) | Deaths for the Ladies (and Other Disasters) (62.3) | Tough Guys Don't Dance (84.17) | The Time of Our Time (98.7)