In this satirical 1991 video, the great James Wolcott battles multiple personalities induced by Norman Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost — until he heals himself by comforting the hurt little boy inside him.
At the end of every road is another road, and at the end of that road is a place where it’s sunny and quiet, a place where we men can meet and talk, and our inner children can play together. And it will be good. And I think it’ll be really nice.
Wolcott’s disgust is a finely-honed arrow, one only a Mailer scholar — and admirer — could aim so precisely.
“For those of us who grew up in [Mailer’s] literary thrall,” Wolcott wrote earlier this month, “losing him is like losing a planet, a fire sign of the Zodiac.”