In August of 1977, when visiting Mailer in Provincetown, I asked him to sign a copy of his new book, Genius and Lust: A Journey Through the Writings of Henry Miller (Grove Press, October, 1976). He did, and because I usually use unsigned or paperback editions of Mailer’s work for reference, this signed edition has been untouched all these years. I recently found Mailer’s hand-written note, described below, laid in this copy. It was written in green pencil on the blank side of one page of a xerox copy of an essay by Mark Kram in Sports Illustrated (September 2, 1974), “The Fight’s Lone Arranger.” The piece is a profile of Don King, the promoter who was principally responsible for convincing George Foreman and Muhammad Ali to hold their October 1974 heavyweight championship bout in Zaire. Mailer underlined two passages in the essay, both of which describe King’s violent criminal background, for use in his planned account of the match, The Fight (Little, Brown, July 1975). Paraphrases of the passages show up there (pp. 115-17).
Tag: Henry Miller
Anyway, I can pay you the simplest compliment of all: I wince when I think of my writing having to be laid down next to yours. People will be able to make the obvious comparison. They’re not only going to realize the old boy is great; they’re going to come face to face with the fact that the middle-aged fellow isn’t so terrific.