Old Brawler Won't Grapple with History: Norman Mailer Ruminates on Literature and Life
Julie Salamon's New York Times interview (22 January 2003), on the eve of Mailer's 80th birthday and The Spooky Art: the coming Iraq war and the novel's waning cultural force — 'The novel now rides in a sidecar.' Accompanied by Kakutani's negative review.
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
Julie Salamon’s New York Times interview (22 January 2003), on the eve of Mailer’s 80th birthday and the publication of The Spooky Art. He talks in Provincetown about the coming war in Iraq and the diminishing power of the novel: “The novel now rides in a sidecar.” The piece ran with Michiko Kakutani’s harshly negative review of the book (see 95.36, 05.10, 07.2).
A full transcription, held in the working archive pending rights clearance, is at full text.