" I am assaulted by clippings about The Group..."

Hotel Lucia
Madrid
Saturday (10/19/63)

Dearest Hannah

...The whole Eichmann business is terrible. Now the English reviews. Jim has sent me here crossman and Trevor-Roper. But he has also told me on the phone that there was a very good one, in every sense, by A Alvarez in the New Statesman...




141 Rue de Rennes
Paris 6
October 24, 1963

...In Paris I am assaulted by clippings about The Group, many of them terribly hostile, and by requests for interviews and photos...And I confess I'm depressed by what seems to me the treachery of the New York Book Review people. I suppose you saw the Mailer piece and the parody that preceded it. I find it strange that people who are supposed to be my friends should solicit a review from an announced enemy...It parallels, as I foresaw, in a small way the Eichmann furore, but seems to lack even the hypocritical justification that Jewish piety there provided...

Mary


Quadrangle Club
1155 West 57th
Chicago 37 Illinois
(Autumn 1963)

Dearest Mary

....I read Mailer's review only a couple of days ago - it is so full of personal and stupid invectives (stupid means vulgar) that I can't understand how or why they printed it. I am afraid that Elizabeth had the brilliant idea to ask him - just as she had the brilliant idea to ask Abel to do the PR piece...But she would probably not have done either if there had not been fertile ground for precisely this stab in the back. And what surprises and shocks me most is the tremendous amount of hatred and hostility lying around and waiting only for a chance to break out...

Much, much love
Yours,

Hannah