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The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris: Excerpts from an Unpublished Account of Norman Mailer’s Last Days: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris: Excerpts from an Unpublished Account of Norman Mailer’s Last Days (view source)
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__NOTOC__ | {{DISPLAYTITLE:<span style="font-size:22px;">''The Mailer Review''/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/</span>Remembering Norris: Excerpts from an Unpublished Account of Norman Mailer’s Last Days}}__NOTOC__ | ||
{{MR05}} | {{MR05}} | ||
{{byline|last=Lennon|first=J. Michael|note=The following entries are taken from a log I kept for the last three years of Mailer’s life when my wife Donna and I were living in Provincetown, Massachusetts, not far from the Mailers’ large brick house on the harbor. Entries were made every few days, along with occasional reflections. While the log focuses on Mailer and his table talk, Norris is on almost every page, and it was easy to select three dozen entries in which she is described and/or quoted. Note: [[Norris Church Mailer]] is identified as NCM; [[Norman Mailer]] as NM.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr11lenn}} | |||
{{byline|last=Lennon|first=J. Michael | |||
===06–11–05=== | ===06–11–05=== | ||
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NM read all of James Atlas’s 1979 profile of him in ''The New York Times Sunday Magazine'', and NCM leafed through it, admiring the photographs but little else. She felt Atlas was inaccurate in spots, especially the story of NM speaking at Harvard and the audience being bored. “Not true,” she said. NM thought that Atlas had been given some general editorial directions to rough him up a bit. He added that he now liked Atlas. NCM remembered how she got back at him: at a Jean Stein [editor of ''Grand Street''] party, Stein brought him over to NCM, who is somewhat taller than Atlas. She looked right over his head and said, “Oh yes, where is he?” NM decided to go for a swim after Donna told him how warm the water was. He said he just did not feel like starting the novel today. He plans to read it through and then begin writing again. NCM told us that because of her stent, she could never swim in the ocean again, or even take a bath. But then she smiled and shook it off. No complainer, she. None of the Mailers are, a family trait. | NM read all of James Atlas’s 1979 profile of him in ''The New York Times Sunday Magazine'', and NCM leafed through it, admiring the photographs but little else. She felt Atlas was inaccurate in spots, especially the story of NM speaking at Harvard and the audience being bored. “Not true,” she said. NM thought that Atlas had been given some general editorial directions to rough him up a bit. He added that he now liked Atlas. NCM remembered how she got back at him: at a Jean Stein [editor of ''Grand Street''] party, Stein brought him over to NCM, who is somewhat taller than Atlas. She looked right over his head and said, “Oh yes, where is he?” NM decided to go for a swim after Donna told him how warm the water was. He said he just did not feel like starting the novel today. He plans to read it through and then begin writing again. NCM told us that because of her stent, she could never swim in the ocean again, or even take a bath. But then she smiled and shook it off. No complainer, she. None of the Mailers are, a family trait. | ||
{{NCM-Tributes}} | |||
===09–05–05=== | ===09–05–05=== | ||
Arrived in P-Town yesterday and went to dinner at the Mailers’ last night. Steve Mailer, NM’s sister Barbara and John Buffalo were there for dinner. NM was fast asleep on the couch in the TV room until just before dinner at 7:30. I chatted with Barbara and then with NCM. She is going in for her PET scan to check the state of her two tumors, and to see if she has any more. She is remarkably calm about it. Her novel [''Cheap Diamonds''] has gone nowhere this summer because of all the visitors. She told me today that she wants to finish it by year’s end and have it come out next fall, or even the following summer. Today we discussed briefly the possibility that advance excerpts from her novel might be published in ''Mademoiselle'', ''Harper’s Bazaar'', or ''Vanity Fair''. NCM told me that she had once published a piece on how young models should prepare themselves for their career and that her agency, Wilhelmina, used to give it to new models. Need to get a copy. | Arrived in P-Town yesterday and went to dinner at the Mailers’ last night. Steve Mailer, NM’s sister Barbara and John Buffalo were there for dinner. NM was fast asleep on the couch in the TV room until just before dinner at 7:30. I chatted with Barbara and then with NCM. She is going in for her PET scan to check the state of her two tumors, and to see if she has any more. She is remarkably calm about it. Her novel [''Cheap Diamonds''] has gone nowhere this summer because of all the visitors. She told me today that she wants to finish it by year’s end and have it come out next fall, or even the following summer. Today we discussed briefly the possibility that advance excerpts from her novel might be published in ''Mademoiselle'', ''Harper’s Bazaar'', or ''Vanity Fair''. NCM told me that she had once published a piece on how young models should prepare themselves for their career and that her agency, Wilhelmina, used to give it to new models. Need to get a copy. | ||
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Remembering Norris}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Remembering Norris}} | ||
[[Category:Tributes (MR)]] | [[Category:Tributes (MR)]] | ||