The Archivist's Apprentice
J. Michael Lennon's memoir-essay on how he became Mailer's archivist and authorized biographer, profiling his mentors Nancy Potter and Robert F. Lucid and the building of the Mailer archive now at the Harry Ransom Center. A primary source for this project's own lineage. An about-Mailer piece.
J. Michael Lennon. “The Archivist’s Apprentice.” Life Writing Annual: Biographical and Autobiographical Studies, 2020.
A memoir-essay on how Lennon became Mailer’s archivist and, in time, his authorized biographer. It profiles his mentors — Dr. Nancy Potter at the University of Rhode Island and the Mailer scholar Robert F. Lucid — and recounts the building of the Mailer archive now housed at the Harry Ransom Center. Lennon dates his turn from “admirer to enthusiast” to The Armies of the Night and his first Mailer presentation to the Life excerpt of Of a Fire on the Moon (1969). A primary source for this project’s own lineage — Lucid to Lennon to the present edition — and a companion to Norman Mailer: A Double Life. (An abridged version appeared in Archival Outlook, May/June 2023.)
Related pages
- Robert F. Lucid | Harry Ransom Center | J. Michael Lennon | Norman Mailer: A Double Life | About this project