NORMAN MAILER
181
] A:
It's one of the few times you do that.
NM:
It's the only time in the book where I literally do that, where I just
take an interview and put it in the book. It was a found object. You
know, a painter may find something on the street that he thinks is
incredible. Sometimes he 'll glue it right into the painting. It be–
comes part of the work. In
The Executioner's Song,
newspaper
stories became part of the painting and part of the transcript of the
trial-a lot of found objects. I felt acted upon, in a funny way, while
doing this book, by painting terms.
It
was as if I'd shifted from being
an expressionist, not an abstract expressionist, but an expres–
sionist-like Munch, or Max Beckmann ... those kinds of painters
who worked with large exaggeration and murkiness and passionate
power-into now being a photographic realist, even a photographic
realist with found objects. The reason, I think, is that a painter like a
writer sometimes gets to a point where he can no longer interpret
what he sees. Then the act of painting what he literally sees becomes
the aesthetic act. Because what he's seeing is incredible. It mayor
may not be possessed of meaning. Reality, itself, closely studied is
mysterious, and it's el usive.
]A:
So you simply presented it.
NM:
Sometimes you just have
to.
This, I think, is the place painting
has gotten to ... paint this realistic scene as it is, because in the act of
presenting it, you will underline the mystery. That's why you show
it with no decoration and no interpretation-for just that reason.
The aesthetic imperative, if there was one, finally came down to: let
this book be lifelike. Let it be more like American life than anything
that's been done in a long, long time. I don't think good writers often
have this kind of opportunity. Usually, material this good gets
chewed over by journalists and bad writers. There are probably a few
exceptions, but I can only think of
In Cold Blood.
fA:
I wanted to ask you about that because a comparison is bound to be
made.
NM:
Well, I think Truman's book and mine are formally similar, but
vastly different. Obviously, I'll be the first to state that if he hadn 't
done
In Cold Blood,
it's possible that I wouldn ' t have thought of
doing
The Executioner's Song
this way. It's perfectly possible. It's
also perfectly possible that there's something about
The Execution–
er's Song
that called for doing it this way. I might have gone the
same route in any case. Besides, its total flavor is considerably
different from
In Cold Blood.
Truman retained his style for
In Cold
Blood,
not the pure style-he simplified it-but it still was very
