Mailer Talking
Michiko Kakutani's New York Times Book Review interview on the publication of Pieces and Pontifications, in which Mailer describes his transition from 'embattled artist' to 'alchemical artist' and praises the power of Hemingway's style.
“Mailer Talking,” an interview by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times Book Review (6 June 1982), occasioned by the publication of Pieces and Pontifications (82.16). Mailer discusses the trajectory of his own career — the transition from “embattled artist” to “alchemical artist” — and comments on the power of Ernest Hemingway‘s style. Reprinted in Conversations with Norman Mailer (88.6) and in Kakutani’s The Poet at the Piano: Portraits of Writers, Filmmakers, Playwrights and Other Artists at Work (Times Books, 1988).