Letter to Robert J. Begiebing
Mailer thanks Robert J. Begiebing for the Ancient Evenings section of his new book, Toward a New Synthesis (1989), calling it the best thing he has read on that weighty tome, and invites him to Provincetown for the summer.
A signed typescript letter to Robert J. Begiebing, who had interviewed Mailer for Harvard Magazine six years before (“Twelfth Round”). Begiebing had sent his new book, Toward a New Synthesis: John Fowles, John Gardner, and Norman Mailer (UMI Research Press, 1989), and Mailer, having read “quickly” only its section on Ancient Evenings, calls it “the best thing I’ve read so far on that weighty tome,” praising its thoroughness, insight, “and—dare I say it?—the understanding.” He promises, without much conviction, to read the Fowles and Gardner chapters too (“don’t count on that”), and invites Begiebing to 627 Commercial Street in Provincetown for the summer: “This time we will break bread.”
Related pages
- Robert J. Begiebing | Ancient Evenings | Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | 627 Commercial Street, Provincetown | 1989