{"id":7988,"date":"2010-11-30T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=7988"},"modified":"2010-11-29T21:40:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T02:40:19","slug":"tough-guys-dont-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/30\/tough-guys-dont-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Tough Guys Don’t Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Norman Mailer in 1949. Photograph by John H. Popper.<\/p><\/div>\n

Why can\u2019t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? And why must we ache for their approval, their admiration, their love?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but think of an anecdote about Norman Mailer, who was provoked one day to reach out to his hero, big Papa himself. Mailer had just completed The Deer Park<\/a> <\/em>and sent off a copy inscribed<\/p>\n

To Ernest Hemingway:<\/p>\n

\u2014because finally after all these
\nyears I am deeply curious to know
\nwhat you think \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014but if you do not answer, or if you
\nanswer with the kind of crap you
\nuse to answer unprofessional writers,
\nsycophants, brown-nosers, etc. then
\nfuck you \u2026<\/p>\n

Norman Mailer<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The book came back to Mailer unopened, stamped \u201cAddress Unknown\u2014Return to Sender,\u201d in Spanish. (See Mailer\u2019s Advertisements for Myself<\/a><\/em> for a complete telling in hard-earned italics.) <\/p>\n

I have my own relationship with one of my heroes, and the mere fact that I call it a \u201crelationship\u201d is in itself deeply sick. I\u2019m veiling a juvenile obsession, hiding behind the very word: hero<\/em>. In truth, this relationship consists of a few encounters, some good, some bad, the first of which happened one night at Hunter College when I was an M.F.A. student.<\/p>\n

D. said he had only been in a classroom full of writers once or twice before. He didn\u2019t teach. Never had. He just wrote novels, and he\u2019d been doing so quite well for forty years. I knew I was in the presence of a great artist not only because of the novels I had become enamored with, but by the way he spoke about his sentences, with a certain degree of spirituality. To him, words were like mysterious objects that lined up in an order based on syllable and beat, sight, sound, and meaning. It was our job as writers to figure out that order. <\/p>\n

During D.\u2019s lecture, he and I spoke across the room about Max Frisch, who we were both reading at the time. We discussed Man in the Holocene<\/a><\/em> and Montauk<\/a><\/em>, and I grew confident that I would have enough material for a good chat when I went up to get my book signed. And then, when the time was right, I would ask him for a picture. Yes, I had come to class that night with the intention of getting a picture. And not just any picture. I wanted one with my arm around him, and his arm around me, like we were old buddies. <\/p>\n

Broaching the subject was easy. \u201cWould you mind?\u201d I asked, brandishing my camera. \u201cIt would mean a great deal.\u201d He didn\u2019t immediately say yes, but instead began fidgeting in his plastic chair. His eyes darted from side to side as though looking for an exit. I could feel myself falling out of favor. I was no longer a writer or a student of the craft; I was a sycophant, a brownnoser, an amateur. I was a kid with a camera. Of course he didn\u2019t want to take a picture with me. <\/p>\n

To save face, I suggested we take a picture together with my two teachers, so the four of us lined up, with D. and I on opposite ends. <\/p>\n

At first it started as a joke. I was going to Photoshop my teachers out of the picture so that it was just me and D. I thought it would be funny, something to show my classmates. I even asked a photographer friend if he would do it for me. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took some cropping,\u201d he said. \u201cBut luckily your arm was around the other guy precisely where we needed it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat,\u201d I said. \u201cIt looks real.\u201d So real, in fact, that part of me would forget there had been two men standing between us.<\/p>\n

The next time I saw D. was a few months later, at the Norman Mailer colony in Provincetown, where I was living for the summer. I was nervous that he wouldn\u2019t remember me, or, worse, that he would remember me as the guy who forced him to take that stupid picture. But that wasn\u2019t the case. \u201cOf course I remember,\u201d he said. \u201cThe tall guy at the end of the long table.\u201d <\/p>\n

We sat in Mailer\u2019s living room with the other writers at the colony, and D. told us a story about the first time he met Mailer, a writer he had idolized in his youth. They were both attending a literary event at a Manhattan theater. D. stepped out to get some air, and there was Mailer leaning against the balustrade, smoking a cigarette. D. introduced himself, and, wanting to make an impression, began talking about a new book he was working on about Lee Harvey Oswald. This was very unlike D.; he rarely told anyone what he was writing about before it was finished. In response, Mailer abruptly stubbed out his smoke and said, \u201cLet\u2019s go back inside.\u201d Little did D. know, Mailer was at work on a very similar book, what would become Oswald\u2019s Tale<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

I felt better after hearing that story. It placed D. in a context I could understand. I could see him as a younger, eager writer, trying to swim in the same pool I was drowning in. <\/p>\n

I kept the photo taped above my writing desk in my little room at the colony, but it never brought the inspiration I thought it would. When I left, I packed it away in the pages of D.\u2019s first novel, and that\u2019s where I keep it still. <\/p>\n

When it comes to meeting your hero, you can\u2019t shut off the obsessed fan inside. I\u2019ve seen D. since, and my admiration for him is still there, along with the desire to impress and to be remembered. But part of me knows we can never really be friends; he will likely never read a word I write, and I\u2019ve accepted that. I do, however, return to his books, and that relationship\u2014perhaps the more important one\u2014remains strong.<\/p>\n

Alex Gilvarry is the editor of <\/em>Tottenville Review<\/a> and the author of a novel forthcoming from Viking.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why can\u2019t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? And why must we ache for their approval, their admiration, their love? I can\u2019t help but think of an anecdote about Norman Mailer, who was provoked one day to reach out to his hero, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[571,1440,274,1326,275,1438,1437,1439],"class_list":["post-7988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-literary-hero","tag-ernest-hemingway","tag-lee-harvey-oswald","tag-literary-heros","tag-max-frisch","tag-meeting-the-goose","tag-montauk","tag-norman-mailer","tag-photoshop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTough Guys Don't Dance by Alex Gilvarry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 30, 2010 \u2013 Why can\u2019t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? 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