Norman Mailer: Works and Days

La Petite Bourgeoise

A c. 1951 short story unpublished in Mailer's lifetime, recovered from the Ransom Center and first printed in The Mailer Review in 2014. A party comedy in which the narrator Michael circles a provocative divorcée, Rosalie, and is finally outmaneuvered — used to make her escort jealous.

Read the full text

“La Petite Bourgeoise.” The Mailer Review 8.1 (2014), 10–16.

A party comedy: the narrator Michael circles Rosalie, a provocative divorcée guarded by the fastidious Thomas, and is finally outmaneuvered — recruited only to make her escort jealous. One of a group of stories Mailer wrote around 1951, in the period after Barbary Shore, and left unpublished in his lifetime; it first appeared in The Mailer Review in 2014.

Editorial notes

First published: 2014
Form: short-story
Lennon & Lennon: 14.1
Cite as: /works/2014-la-petite-bourgeoise
Last updated: 2026-06-08