The Books That Made Writers
Mailer's contribution to a New York Times symposium of 22 writers on the book that made them want to write; he names Studs Lonigan, Captain Blood, The Amateur Gentleman, and the novels of Scott and Hardy.
“The Books That Made Writers,” a New York Times symposium (25 November 1979) in which twenty-two writers — Mailer, García Márquez, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Wolfe, and others — answer “What book made you decide to become a writer and why?” Mailer names Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell, Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood, Jeffrey Farnol’s The Amateur Gentleman, and the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Hardy.