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Letter from Joyce Archives
Look for the February 2004 release of The Usual Rules in paperback!
February 5, 2007
Dear Friends,
You haven’t heard from me for a few weeks now because I’ve been in Guatemala, doing some writing and preparing for the third Lake Atitlan Writing Workshop, taking place next week.
This past weekend, though, I made a whirlwind trip back to the U.S.: A half hour boat ride, three hour car ride, six and a half hour plane ride…. all for the purpose of getting up on a stage in Sacramento yesterday to have a talk with a writer I have long admired, Norman Mailer. He’s been touring the country in support of his new book (his 36th), called Castle in the Forest. Four days after his 84th birthday, I caught up with him in Sacramento.
As long as it took to get there, and then turn right around and get back to the lake, I’m so happy I made that trip, my conversation with Mailer was that inspiring and, very simply, so much fun. We talked about many things: his new book (a fictional exploration into the childhood of Adolf Hitler), his six marriages, his nine children, the life of a writer, his dismay over the Iraq war, his frequently untidy and occasionally notorious adventures, sex (one of his favorite topics), his theory about the origins of evil, and the existence of God. In whom he believes, he said—though not as an all-powerful being but rather, a constantly embattled force of goodness, in a world where devils are also at work.
I had worried a little about Mailer’s age, having heard that he is pretty hard of hearing now, and that his eyesight is poor. And in fact, the sturdy, barrel-chested man I’d seen in photographs was not the one who walked—very slowly, on two canes—onto the stage at the Crest Theater yesterday (to a sellout crowd of a thousand who had chosen this event over the Super Bowl).
But what I found, the moment we began to talk, was a man still in possession of fierce intelligence, wit and energy—a sparring partner, if ever there was one. We had a great time talking, and could have gone on a lot longer if he hadn’t had another engagement in San Francisco, and I, a plane to catch, to Guatemala.
So—less than eighteen hours later—my high heels are packed away and I’m back in my bathing suit, meditating on the volcano out my window and making final preparations for the arrival of the twenty-seven writing students (and one other teacher—my great friend Bob Bausch) who will be joining me here, this Saturday. If you are among those who sometimes consider attending one of my Guatemala workshops, I want to urge you to try and make it, next time. I know we’re going to have an astonishing week.
Once again, I am sharing with you a piece of writing of mine. This time it’s an essay I call Your Friend Always, and it’s part of a collection that comes out this month, with Doubleday, titled Mr. Wrong, edited by Harriet Brown—pieces by twenty-five women writers, on relationships with men that proved to be a less than great idea. This essay also appears in the current (February) issue of Vogue Magazine.
So there you have it. A little Mr. Wrong, a little Norman Mailer. I think I’ll leave you with something he said to me, in Sacramento yesterday, when I asked what it was like for him—a former boxer, a famous brawler and a man who exemplified a certain kind of macho virility—to find himself leaning on those two canes, and straining to hear my voice.
“I think of myself as something like a freighter,” he said, “moving slowly through rough seas to my destination. I have had to throw some things overboard, to lighten the load—knees first, then hearing, now it’s sight.
“They can all go, so long as I hold onto this,” he said, pointing to his head, his fearsome brain.
The new book may not be his last, by the way. He hopes he has a couple more left. To that end, he works every day. His chief concern, that afternoon: a cut on his thumb, incurred when he picked up the wrong end of his razor. Luckily, however, not his writing hand.
Off I go to dive into Lake Atitlan. I hope you enjoy the story. (Every word is true, sad to say.)
With friendship,
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