Norman Mailer's Stabbing of Adele Morales

Background

During this time Norman Mailer would often partake in many types of drugs and alcohol, Such as marijuana and whiskey. Mailer also had a short temper and would happily engage in head-butting, arm-wrestling, and random punch-throwing. For much of the '50s, he drifted, frequently drunk or stoned or both. The Mailers had been married for six years. Norman was waiting on a hearing of a charge of disorderly conduct. He had gotten into a hassle over a tab of $7.60 a week before at Birdland. Adele told the arresting detectives the night of November 20th that he had been displaying "homicidal tendencies". Their family had been attempting to get him to see a psychiatrist. Mailer's life had been publicly marred by several incidents which raised doubts about his emotional stability.

The Incident

Mailer had decided to run for Mayor of New York. On November 19th, 1960, in an effort to boost the campaign a party was hosted. The attendees of this event however would be a clear insight into Mailer's mental status at the time, as it was reported that alongside the formal guests, many individuals had come straight from the streets. As the hours passed, many of the guests including Mailer had become heavily intoxicated, and quarrels broke out. An argument between Mailer and his sister regarding the campaign came up, resulting in him hitting her. The Mailer couple themselves then argued when Adele tried to defend her. Mailer had begun physically fighting off his guests and had then left to fight those who were not involved with the party. When he had returned at around 4:30 a.m., witnesses say that Adele taunted his masculinity and literary talents during their tiff. Angered, he stabbed her in the heart, in her upper abdomen, and then in the back, both with a penknife. As she lay there, hemorrhaging, a man at the party came to assist her and Mailer snapped, saying "Get away from her. Let the bitch die." She was not taken to the hospital until three hours after the altercation. When arrived at the hospital, she said that she was at a party and fell onto glass, though doctors were skeptical. She told the police after that "He didn't say anything. He just looked at me. He didn't say a word. He just stabbed me". Morales never made a full recovery. She developed pleurisy and found herself coughing up black phlegm several times throughout the day. Several years later, she fell into poverty and became an alcoholic.

The Aftermath

Mailer was arrested at the hospital around 10 pm. Initially, Mailer pleaded “not guilty,” but later changed his plea to “guilty” to avoid harmful publicity for his family. "He was charged with felonious assault and placed under psychiatric observation. Anxious above all, however, to protect her two young daughters, she declined to press charges. In the end Mailer pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and received only a suspended sentence. A year later, they divorced." After the stabbing, Mailer was committed to Bellevue Mental Hospital. "I was very upset because my feeling was I committed a crime." His criminal lawyer had suggested he go to the hospital. "He was thinking like a criminal lawyer" Mailer spoke. They used the mental hospital as a way to save him had his wife did end up dying from the injuries inflicted upon her. Mailer hated this, he felt he would go crazy if he'd be there any longer.

Not wanting to separate a father from his children and with some hopes their marriage could be reconciled, Adele pressed no charges. Instead, He was confined to the Bellevue Mental Hospital for seventeen days as a result.

This incident wasn't well received in the public eye. They weren't amused by Mailer's published poem in 1962 indirectly poking at the stabbing. "So long as you use a knife, there's some love left."

Critical Response

Susan Mailer, when interviewed, spoke briefly about her father. She said that in her memoir, she wrote the chapter "Silent Spaces" which was about the unavoidable angst that the traumatic event caused for their family. Susan studied psychoanalysis for many years. When she wrote her memoir, it was her "second analysis." She admits she was afraid of him, but she also understood her fears of him. "He had stabbed his wife, my stepmother, Adele." Susan Mailer added, "We had to deal with the shame of having a father who had almost killed his wife. A father who was famous enough so that no one ever let you forget what he had done."

Personal Response

After being remanded to Bellevue, Mailer confessed to the judge: “I feel I did a lousy, dirty, cowardly thing.” In an interview, Mailer was asked if he drank a lot (he was drunk when he stabbed her). Mailer went on to say the only time he ever drank heavily was when a marriage was breaking up. When asked why Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, Mailer opts out of talking about it saying that he'd maybe write about it later. He was then asked if he hated women to which he responds that he doesn't hate them, however, he does get irritated with them differently than he does with men. Mailer said he considers himself "apart of the generation, who considers fucking up an interesting way to express yourself, a way to do things." When asked how he considers himself one, he mentions how he'd lost some books that could've been written, but he was too absorbed in himself and his problems. He thinks he's one because he went into debt. Nowhere does he mention his crimes against Adele.

In her 1997 memoir titled "The Last Party", Adele Morales gave a written recollection of the stabbing. She recalled seeing Norman punching people in the street during the night of the stabbing. He apparently was in a delirious state where he couldn't "remember who he was, or what his name was." She vividly remembered Norman Mailer bursting into her apartment, also recalling that she couldn't see the knife in his hand while he was rushing towards her. Morales noted that Mailer had a jarring indifference while she laid on the floor bleeding.

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