Norman Mailer on Literary Instincts and Ambitions
Sean Abbott's eleven-page omnibus interview for At Random, occasioned by the forthcoming Time of Our Time (98.7) — a wide-ranging survey of Mailer's half-century career, including his candid account of how the feminist controversy cost him readers.
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
“Norman Mailer on Literary Instincts and Ambitions,” Sean Abbott’s eleven-page omnibus interview for At Random (dated 27 April), takes the forthcoming The Time of Our Time (98.7) as the occasion for a survey of Mailer’s half-century career. Among much else, Mailer reflects candidly on how the feminist controversy cost him readers: “It was a great shock to me that women were actually able to affect how people read me … maybe a third of the men won’t read me either because it gets to be too much of a hassle.” Lennon calls it a “major interview by a shrewd interviewer.”
A full transcription, held in the working archive pending rights clearance, is at full text.