User:AMegginson/sandbox
Bibliography
- Bufithis, H. Philip (1978). Norman Mailer. NewYork: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. pp. 1–147.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Daily News, New York (2015). "Norman Mailer stabs his wife Adele in 1960". news. New York.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Cornwell, Rupert (2015). "Adele Mailer". article. UK.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Background
The mailers had been married six years. Mailer 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 20 that he had been displaying "homicidal tendencies". Their family had been attempting to get him to see a psychiatrist. They hosted a party on November 19, 1960.
The Incident
In the early hours of the morning, the more people at the party that drank, the more quarrels that broke out. Mailer and his sister got into a fight about her campaign that he did not like. He started hitting her, then the Mailer couple themselves got into an argument when Adele tried to help. Some say that Adele taunted his literary talents. She was stabbed in the upper abdomen, by the heart, and in the back, both by a penknife. She was not taken to the hospital until three hours had passed. She told the hospital, though they were skeptical, that she had fallen on a broken bottle. She told police the truth in the afternoon after her surgery.
The Aftermath
Mailer was arrested at the hospital around 10 pm. He was booked at the W. 100th St. Station at 11:35 pm. He was charged with felonious assault, but would not tell the police anything until he had a lawyer. Adele did not press charges against him to protect her daughters. He plead guilty to 3rd degree assault and received a suspended sentence. The divorced a year later, but "the stabbing embittered her permanently. She accepted a modest settlement from Mailer, whose career then was in the doldrums, and that support fell further after their daughters had completed college." (Rupert Cornwell article)