Lucking Out Read Free Page A

line that Degas said to Whistler—two celebrated painters—and Whistler was a great performer like Norman, and Degas said, ‘You know, Whistler, you act as if you had no talent’ ”—by snapping, “Come on, I read that quote the same place you did, in Edmund Wilson’s answer to Nabokov in this Sunday’s
Times Book Review.
” So don’t try pulling any of those fancy erudite moves on me, buster! Mailer went on to talk about his experience in reporting and writing
The Armies of the Night
, the importance of getting the dramatic feel of the action right rather than burying your nose in the notepad and missing the marrow of the moment. He was talking shop to me, someone who had no shop to talk! Guaranteeing no certain result, he offered to write a letter of recommendation for me to Dan Wolf, the editor of the
Village Voice
, whenever I graduated from college, and I decided then and there to drop out of college at the end of my sophomore year and leave for Manhattan. Well, I didn’t decide “then and there,” holding the letter in my hand, but I decided to decide, and knew that in a deeper sense the decision had been made for me. I felt that if I didn’t take the gamble soon, in two years I might be afraid to take a shot and that Mailer might have forgotten by then his earlier promise, and who knows what could happen between now and then? So I wrote back to Mailer, immediately taking him up on his offer, and he was as good as his word, writing to Wolf:
    Dear Dan:
    I have taken the liberty of telling a young college kid, 19, to go and look you up for a job. His name is James Wolcott and he sent me a piece of reporting he did about the Cavett show I did with Vidal which I must say impressed me. Not only because it was kind to your aging ex-partner, but for the sharp recall of the quotes and the feeling Wolcott had for what the participants were up to and how they were feeling inside as the show went on. This is a long way of saying that I think this fellow has talent which I don’t feel too often about young writers, and in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if he was the best I sent your way since Lucian Truscott. (Let me hope I sent Lucian your way—all I know is that I corresponded with him for a couple of years and this name popped up in the
Voice
, so I may take credit for a connection I don’t deserve.)
    At any rate, Dan, I wrote to James Wolcott, told him how much I liked the piece and asked him if he would be interested in getting an interview with you for working on the
Voice.
He answered all the way in the affirmative and I think he would be willing to live on hot dogs for a while, which can’t be said of all of our sterling reporters these days, can it? I guess, therefore, you will hear from him before too long and I would appreciate it if you would let him have a little of your time and give a try out on a story or two.
    Cheers,
    Norman
    Hear from me Wolf did, and in return he sent a note a bit less up-tempo.
    “Dear Mr. Wolcott,” he began and, after some preliminaries, cautioned:
    There are very few staff writers on the
Voice
and those we put on are drawn from the ranks of our contributors. However, we have a number of fairly regular contributors.
    If you decide to come to New York I would certainly be glad to talk things over with you and try to evaluate the situation. But I must stress the fact that everyone is represented by what he does rather than what he says. You wrote a piece on N.M. I would like to see it if you have a copy.
    Sincerely,
    Daniel Wolf
    Obviously, this wasn’t an urgent summons to pack up my dreams and hop the next hay wagon north, but I decided to read this yellow signal as go-ahead green, and after a summer spent dosing and weighing rats in a biomedical lab at Edgewood Arsenal (where one of the technicians and I discussed Proust to everyone else’s amused indifference), I arrived in New York in the fall, fording my way through the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where a