The Time of Her Time
"The Time of Her Time" is a 1959 short story written by Norman Mailer, first appearing in his miscellany Advertisements for Myself. The story depicts macho Irish Catholic bullfighting instructor Sergius O'Shaugnessy and his sexual conquest of a young, middle-class Jewish college girl, Denise Gondelman. The short story was adapted to film in 2000 by Francis Delia. On multiple occasions, Mailer has touted "The Time of Her Time" as "the godfather of Lolita." Background In a 1958 letter to Mickey Knox, Mailer describes "Time" as part of a novel-in-progress: "it's interesting I believe, real blow by blow stuff, not hot, but direct enough in its details to be considered pornographic." In light of this fact, Mailer wrote to Dwight Macdonald, and thirteen other critics, to solicit support for publication in order to avoid prosecution for obscenity. Mailer's 1961 letter to André Deutsch, his publisher in England, continues to argue the merits of "Time" and why it should be published, making it "clear that he was less and less able to bridle his irrationality" about this matter. In an untitled postscript to "Time" in the British version of Advertisements, Mailer notes that the second part of "Time" was omitted because it