Abstract
In an interview with Scott Spenser, which appeared in the Guardian following the publication of Harlot’s Ghost, Norman Mailer provides this insight into his shift in attitude toward the CIA precipitated by his research for the novel:
By the time I started Harlot’s Ghost my attitude towards the CIA was no longer hostile. At one point, I believed that the CIA was the most sinister organization we have, but I came to think it was the most sinister bureaucracy—and my novel became a comedy of manners. (Spenser 21)
Intelligence agencies are supposed to resolve national obsessions, not cause them, but this is what gives a novelist something to do after breakfast.
DeLillo to Mailer 2 September 1991
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© 2010 John Whalen-Bridge
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McDonald, B.J. (2010). Spooks and Agencies: Harlot’s Ghost and the Culture of Secrecy. In: Whalen-Bridge, J. (eds) Norman Mailer’s Later Fictions. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230109056_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230109056_8
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