A 25th Anniversary Toast

ON THE MORNING OF SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 1983, an assistant professor of political science who had snuck off to his office to get a little writing done, found himself too distracted by recollections of a wretchedly uncomprehending review of Ancient Evenings in the New York Times Book Review to get down to his own work. Instead he wrote up and sent off to Evenings' author a critique of the review and an appreciation of the slighted work. A full six months later Mailer returned me sentences of a grace equal to those of Evenings' and of a graciousness that would establish itself as a hallmark of the Mailer would know, mainly by post, for nearly a quarter century. I was delighted to read you said--the praise was ambrosial and the critique luminous--and would doubtless have answered you on the instant but was lost in work, and if don't answer a good letter at once, it always seems as if months go by--I want to go back to a moment when can respond appropriately and the moments don't arrive, Mailer responded. Through last year another thirty letters and notes from Mailer would find their moment to complete an exchange. As exchanges with Mailer place one at but three degrees of separation from the major constellations of the American literary universe--indeed at times emboldened me to write directly to one of Norman's peers--events of some possibly small public interest emerged. For example, on one occasion, after brashly notifying Gore Vidal of a best-seller listing in the Chicago Tribune that attributed Lincoln as well as Tough Guys Don't Dance to Norman Mailer, would receive back word from Vidal stating that Lincoln Kirstein had been a tough guy who had danced. On another occasion, after had expressed surprise to Mailer that John Updike, reviewing fiction frequently for The New Yorker at that time, had not reviewed Ancient Evenings, Mailer would send me the following distillation of his experience with Evenings's reception: [N]one of the reviews of Ancient Evenings have lifted my old writer's heart very much. It seems a singularly unapproachable book for the critics. (A few weeks later Updike would respond to a question from me about the missed Updike by suggesting that he had not reviewed Evenings because [he was] daunted by his perception of what a mighty job being fair to it and Mailer would be and by noting that he had found Harold Bloom's recent review for the NYRB admiring and intelligent. …

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