Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Norman Mailer's bestseller, Harlot's Ghost, opens with the narrator, Harry Hubbard, describing his surroundings in Maine. Above the first chapter are the words Omega 1, which refer to a secret autobiographical manuscript that Harry had begun years before (9). When the book begins, Harry is living with his wife, Kittredge, at a place they call the Keep (5). The Keep once belonged to Harry's father, Cal Hubbard, who sold it to his second cousin, Rodman Knowles Gardiner (7). Ironically, Rodman Gardiner is Kittredge's father, and Kittredge gained possession of the Keep on her first marriage (7).

The novel begins innocently enough, with Harry describing his wife's eyes as having "the blue of the sea" and saying that her white skin becomes "luminous in any pale meadow" (5). Although Harry and Kittredge have no children, they are somewhat distracted by the ringing of bells from chapels with no bells; according to Harry, the Keep has a ghost, Augustus Farr (7-8).

The author does not take long to thicken the plot . Before long the narrator reveals that Kittredge is Harry's third cousin, that both Harry and his father worked in the CIA and spent three years trying to kill Castro, and that Harry had -saved his wife from suicide (11-13). Kittredge Montague-Hubbard is a Radcliffe graduate who seems to have an affinity for intrigue, since her first husband, Hugh Tremont Montague (otherwise known as Harlot, and by Kittredge, affectionately, as Gobby),

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ague. Harry also keeps secret the warnings that Cal Hubbard gives him about Harvey (222-23). When Harry describes Harvey's former marriage to Libby, his current wife, Clara Grace Follich, and their home, Mailer leaves it unclear whether this is fact or fiction (227-36). And Harry, except for his blind spots (his friendships with Kittredge and Montague and his need of his father's approval), has all the makings of a good CIA man: strain never shows on his face, he is able to lie convincingly (he has no idea who KU/CLOAKROOM is), he has no friends outside the CIA, and he works hard at his job, no matter how menial (the file room he started in) and no matter how tyrannical his boss, like William "King" Harvey (252-315). Likewise, Harry has the ability to get out of very strange predicaments without tipping anyone off to his real feelings, most notably, the time he escapes Butler's homosexual advances with a kiss on the lips and the words "I Love You Dix" (292-93). Harry also has the ability to record compromising details about his superiors without their knowledge--he tapes the details of Harvey's first marriage on a "sneaky" and later transcribes the tape for Montague (310-27). Once again Harry proves that he is a good liar wh

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