Deborah - from An American Dream
Mailer's selection for the anthology This Is My Best - the murder of Deborah from An American Dream - prefaced by a new 313-word letter calling the novel 'a tea ceremony on the edge of a cliff' and 'my best book.'
“Deborah — from An American Dream” appears in This Is My Best: In the Third Quarter of the Century, edited by Whit Burnett (New York: Doubleday, late September 1970, 99–110). Mailer’s chosen selection — the murder of Deborah from chapter 1 of An American Dream (65.7) — is prefaced by a new 313-word letter in which he characterizes the novel as “a tea ceremony on the edge of a cliff” and calls it “my best book.” Rpt: 14.3.