A Mysterious Country

The Grace and Fragility of American Democracy

Norman Mailer, J. Michael Lennon, John Buffalo Mailer

• Publisher: Arcade
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781956763591
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Published on the centenary of Norman Mailer's birth, a timely and urgent call to preserve our democracy
From his bestselling first novel, The Naked and the Dead, to his last work, American democracy was a lifelong project for Norman Mailer. It was his grand theme. Nearly all of his books touched on the pros and cons, the strengths and weaknesses, the grace (to use his word) and fragility of the American experiment as well as the threats to it—from autocratic leaders and a complacent citizenry, from violent protest and radical conservative assaults on it, from "soft fascism" and the ills of racism and poverty. In the sharp and impassioned language of a political Cassandra and with the eye of a novelist and journalist, he explored the underlying psychological, social, and economic causes of the country's fragile polity and offered urgent prescriptions for its reinvigoration. A Mysterious Country is a carefully selected collection of Mailer's most incisive—and sometimes remarkably prophetic—commentary on American democracy and what must be done to safeguard it. The anthology draws on both published and unpublished sources, from Mailer's great works of narrative nonfiction and novels as well as essays, interviews, letters, speeches, and talk show appearances. It includes pungent remarks on every president from FDR through George W. Bush, as well as correspondence with several. Throughout, what shines through is Mailer's passion for our democratic project—as well as the freedom that comes with it—and a keen awareness of its potential for failure, its virtues, and what is required of us to keep it intact.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Editors’ Note
• Introduction
• Opening Remarks: Excerpts from The Big Empty (2006), The Presidential Papers (1963), and Dreams and Nightmares: Mailer’s America (2000)
• 1 The General’s Lecture
• 2 Letter to Beatrice Mailer
• 3 Hitler on My Mind
• 4 Frontiers of Violence
• 5 Russia, the Progressive Party, and Henry Luce
• 6 Roots and Paranoia
• 7 Depression, Desperation, Fascism I
• 8 McLeod Tells All
• 9 Letter to Arthur Miller
• 10 The Depths of Democratic Strength
• 11 Eitel Tells All
• 12 Eisenhower and Corporate Power
• 13 Jackie Robinson and Black Rage
• 14 Jazz and the White Negro
• 15 “The White Negro”
• 16 J. Edgar Hoover and Stalin
• 17 “Superman Comes to the Supermarket”
• 18 Living Like Cockroaches
• 19 “The Existential Heroine: Jackie Kennedy”
• 20 Letter to Playboy
• 21 A Long Season of Dread
• 22 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
• 23 “The Leading Man”: Review of J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth by Victor Lasky
• 24 Letter to Mickey Knox
• 25 Ike’s GOP Convention Speech, 1964
• 26 Goldwater: Sincere Demagogue
• 27 Letter to Eiichi Yamanishi
• 28 Review of My Hope for America by Lyndon B. Johnson
• 29 “A Speech at Berkeley on Vietnam Day”
• 30 Letter to William F. Buckley, Jr.
• 31 A Second Letter to William F. Buckley, Jr.
• 32 A Sharp Searing Love for His Country
• 33 The Marshal and the Nazi
• 34 A Love Affair with America
• 35 Robert Kennedy’s Magic
• 36 The Reporter Observes the Wasps
• 37 Richard M. Nixon, GOP Convention, 1968
• 38 Ronald Reagan, GOP Convention, 1968
• 39 Eugene McCarthy I
• 40 Eugene McCarthy II
• 41 Mayor Daley, Clansman
• 42 Hippies, Yippies, and Schizophrenia
• 43 Good Cops, Bad Cops
• 44 A National Disorder
• 45 Bobby Kennedy Remembered
• 46 Pat Nixon: Portrait of a First Lady
• 47 Lunch with Kissinger
• 48 Nixon’s Fall
• 49 A Visit with Jimmy Carter in Plains, Georgia
• 50 Letter to Mary Bancroft
• 51 Letter to President Jimmy Carter
• 52 Nixon’s Curtain Call
• 53 A Talk with Clint Eastwood
• 54 Married to America
• 55 Jesse Jackson for President
• 56 Black Power, Political Parties, and Prison Camps
• 57 Warren Beatty: One on One
• 58 Letter to Hillary Clinton
• 59 Depression, Desperation, Fascism II
• 60 Black Justice/White Justice: O. J. Simpson
• 61 The Rage of Slavery
• 62 A Long Talk with Republican Presidential Candidate Patrick Buchanan
• 63 Hillary, Bill, and Monica
• 64 Letter to Sal Cetrano
• 65 Larger than the Atom Bomb
• 66 America’s Crumbling Spiritual Architecture
• 67 Hermann Göring Speaks
• 68 Hope for the Future
• Acknowledgments
• Source Notes