June 20, 2024

Tropical Storm Alberto

The first named storm of the season, Alberto dumped a bunch of rain on us yesterday and overnight. The sound was pleasant as I lay comfortably in my bed, but I wondered if it would let up enough for me to go to camp in the morning. Yes, it did, but the walk in was wet and sticky. We still have some rain in the forecast today, but Alberto seems to have pretty much petered out.

Fanny Mailer to her son, 1941.

I began going through the correspondence this morning, starting with 1941–1943 in Box 511 covering his time at Harvard. Much of it is standard college stuff and letters to the parents asking for money. In 1941 and 1942, Mailer emphasizes short stories and publishing in the Harvard Advocate. Later, he also has letters from publishers about several of his more successful works, including “A Calculus at Heaven.” There’s quote a bit of good stuff here, though nothing groundbreaking. One of my favorite finds is a passage from Mailer’s mom Fanny asking him about his writing, image on the right.

Box 525 is correspondence from 1951, very little of which was germane to my research—being mostly about Barbary Shore, of course. In late 1951, there’s mention of writing stories in letters to Jean Malaquais and Mickey Knox, both similar:

“ I'm still writing at short stories which are neither good nor bad, but keep me from getting depressed at not working at all. I think a few years may go by before I’m ready to do another novel. ” — NM, Letter to Jean Malaquais, ca. late 1951

I know this doesn’t seem like much, but those two boxes had quite a bit to go through. I’ll get to 1952 tomorrow.