Norman Mailer: Works and Days

Norman Mailer in Illinois

J. Michael Lennon's Sunrise article-interview on Mailer's late-October Western Illinois University appearance - the occasion of the first Mailer-Lennon meeting. Mailer mentions the long novel in progress (Ancient Evenings) with six chapters done.

“Norman Mailer in Illinois,” an article-interview by Mike Lennon — J. Michael Lennon, later Mailer’s editor, archivist, and authorized biographer (and a founding editor of this project) — in Sunrise (Macomb, Ill., no. 4, November 1972). It reports a late-October appearance at Western Illinois University where Mailer showed his second film, Beyond the Law, and read from the still-unreleased St. George and the Godfather (72.17). This appearance was the occasion of Mailer and Lennon’s first meeting, the beginning of a thirty-five-year association. The interview centers on narrative perspective in Mailer’s nonfiction; Mailer also mentions “a very long novel” in progress with “60,000 words or six chapters completed” — the book that became Ancient Evenings (83.18).

First published: 1972-11
Form: article-interview
Lennon & Lennon: 72.19
Cite as: /works/1972-11-mailer-in-illinois
Last updated: 2026-06-04