2020
A posthumous year, recorded chiefly through the fourteenth volume of The Mailer Review. J. Michael Lennon's memoir-essay The Archivist's Apprentice appears in Life Writing Annual; The Provincetown editor Chris Busa dies during the year, and the volume memorializes him and Mailer's fourth wife, Beverly Bentley (d. 2018).
A posthumous year, kept largely in the pages of the scholarly record.
The Mailer Review, volume 14
The fourteenth volume of The Mailer Review gathers the year’s Mailer scholarship — among it Lawrence Schiller’s essay on The Executioner’s Song, two recovered Mailer items (his Wilkes University commencement address and a Legs McNeil interview), and grouped memorial tributes.
The Archivist’s Apprentice
In Life Writing Annual, J. Michael Lennon publishes The Archivist’s Apprentice, a memoir-essay on how he became Mailer’s archivist and biographer under the guidance of Robert F. Lucid — an account of the origins of the Mailer archive now at the Harry Ransom Center.
The Savage Poet
In a spaceflight magazine, Mark Stewart publishes The Savage Poet, an illustrated appreciation of Of a Fire on the Moon (a version had appeared in The Mailer Review vol. 13 the previous year).
Deaths
Chris Busa, the founder of Provincetown Arts, dies on 20 June (Karren, “Chris Busa of Provincetown Arts Dies at 73,” Provincetown Independent, 25 June 2020). The Mailer Review 14 memorializes him and Mailer’s fourth wife, Beverly Bentley, who had died in September 2018.