[Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942]

Authors

  • Robert F. Lucid University of Pennsylvania Author

Keywords:

Robert F. Lucid, Boston State Hospital, biography, institutional power, fear and authority, psychological history, formative influences, postwar American literature, Mailer studies

Abstract

Norman’s experience at the state hospital made an enormous impression upon him, as subsequent events would reveal, but for the moment he had little time to think about it. But when he got to the hospital and for the first time in his life encountered the administration of fear as public policy, the shock of recognition seems to have penetrated through to the deepest center of his imagination.

Author Biography

  • Robert F. Lucid, University of Pennsylvania

    The late Robert F. Lucid (1930–2006), longtime Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, was a leading Mailer scholar and critic, often called “the dean” of Mailer scholarship. A close friend of Mailer’s since 1958, he was working on the authorized biography when he died. In the late 1960s, with Mailer’s mother, Fan, he created the Mailer Archive, now residing in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Lucid wrote numerous essays and reviews on Mailer and his work and edited two pioneering collections: Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work (1971), essays and reviews, and The Long Patrol: 25 Years of Writing from the Work of Norman Mailer (1971), selections from 13 of Mailer’s books. Friend and mentor to many in The Mailer Society, he was one of its founders and served on the Society’s Board of Directors. The Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies was created in his honor by the Society in 2003.

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Published

2026-01-25

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2007): Inaugural Issue

Section

Articles