Existential Errands

Mailer's fourth miscellany, gathering essays on film, theatre, and politics from the previous five years, including his negative review of Norman Podhoretz's Making It. Little, Brown, 17 April 1972.

Existential Errands, Mailer’s fourth miscellany, was published by Little, Brown on 17 April 1972. Its 365 pages gather pieces written almost entirely over the previous five years — essays on film and theatre (including “A Course in Film-Making,” 71.25), the letters and squibs from the Prisoner of Sex and Fire on the Moon controversies, and his negative review of Norman Podhoretz’s 1967 memoir Making It. The dedication reads: “To Barbara, to Susan, to Adeline, and to Al.”

Mailer’s headnote frames the half-decade: a period in which The Deer Park as a play (67.13) was produced, Why Are We in Vietnam? (67.15) written, and then The Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Of a Fire on the Moon, and The Prisoner of Sex — “a period when … the moot desire to have one’s immediate say on contemporary matters kept diverting the novelistic impulse into journalism.” The British edition (New English Library, 1982) combines this volume with The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (67.11) as The Essential Mailer (82.19). Reviewed warmly by Cynthia Buchanan in the New York Times Book Review (“We Read Mailer because He Is Our Genius”) and more coolly by Thomas Edwards in the New York Review of Books. Portions reappear in The Time of Our Time (98.7).

Related pages

• St. George and the Godfather (72.17) | “A Course in Film-Making” (71.25)
• Little, Brown and Company | 1972
• The Deer Park: A Play (67.13) | Why Are We in Vietnam? (67.15) | The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (67.11) | The Essential Mailer (82.19) | The Time of Our Time (98.7)

First published: 1972-04-17
Form: collection
Lennon & Lennon: 72.7
Cite as: /works/1972-04-17-existential-errands
Last updated: 2026-06-04