Ministers of Taste: A Story
An epistolary satire "in the form of two real letters" Mailer wrote to Robert B. Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books, copied to a roster of literary figures — a public quarrel over reviewing, taste, and editorial power. First published in Partisan Review (1965); collected in Cannibals and Christians and The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer.
“Ministers of Taste: A Story.” Partisan Review 32 (1965): 26–27, 86.
Subtitled “A Story,” the piece is headed as “two real letters written by Norman Mailer to Robert B. Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books, with copies directed to the associate editors, publishers, and several interested observers.” The letters are dated 22 February and 4 April 1965 — a public quarrel over reviewing, taste, and editorial power, recast as fiction. Collected in Cannibals and Christians (Dial, 1966, “Part Three”) and The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (Dell, 1967).
Related pages
Editorial notes
- Lennon’s print Works and Days gives the piece no separate Works number; the Partisan Review appearance is noted within the Cannibals and Christians entry (66.11) rather than registered on its own. The
legacy-idis therefore left blank, and this standalone Work page is a post-Lennon editorial addition (henceoriginal-author: Lucas). - Cross-vault: Norman Mailer’s Short Fiction treats it as short fiction (
nmsf-id: ministers-of-taste).