Interview with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
An unpublished 17-page transcript of Mailer's fall 1987 interview with members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — Lennon calls it 'exceptionally important.' Mailer covers Tough Guys Don't Dance, morality, the occult, Godard, and feminism, and announces, perhaps for the first time, that his novel-in-progress is about the CIA.
An unpublished 17-page transcript of Mailer’s fall 1987 interview with members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Lennon calls it “exceptionally important”: Mailer “discusses all aspects of his film, Tough Guys Don’t Dance, as well as his ideas on morality, where he lives, the occult, Jean-Luc Godard, the appeal of film to the unconscious, feminism and many other topics.” Most consequentially, he announces — “perhaps for the first time” — that his novel-in-progress is about the CIA, the project that would become Harlot’s Ghost (91.26).
The transcript survives because Mailer sent it on to his bibliographer: a note in pencil on the title page reads, “Judith, Send to Mike Lennon. Mike — It’s hopelessly garbled by whoever transcribed it — and I’m probably guilty too, but I send it off to you for your sense of a complete dossier on interviews.”