User:Sherita Sims-Jones/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Norris was the only child born to James Davis and Gaynell Phillips.  She grew up in a religious setting in Arkansas being a member of Freewill Baptist Church. She later added the name Church to her name due to attending Freewill so often. <ref>https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u_1oNOkbDzVEUFrj2joANVxn_cHf_aVc</ref> Norris grew up in Atkins, Arkansas, where her mother owned the local beauty shop and her grandparents were sharecroppers.[2] As a child, she was severely affected by her mother's bouts of depression and was hospitalized and given electroshock treatments.[3] Norris and her family were simple country people who attended church faithfully.[4] When she was twenty years old, she married her high school sweetheart, Larry Norris, and together they had one son, Matthew.[5] By 1975, Norris, at just 25 years old, had divorced her first husband and had worked several jobs including working in a pickle factory and as a bookkeeper.[6] Shortly after her divorce from Norris, she claimed to have "had a fling" with future U.S. President Bill Clinton.[7] Norris enjoyed her life as a single mom and spreading her wings.[4] Norris and her young son moved to Russellville, Arkansas and explored her love of the arts by working as a high school art teacher until everything changed when she met Norman  

Norris was interested in writing and wrote about a hundred pages of a novel loosely based on herself as a young girl growing up in Arkansas.[8]Still in the early days of their relationship, Norris showed her rough draft to Mailer for his opinion to which he callously responded, "It's not as bad as I thought it would be", causing Norris to put her work aside for the next several decades.[7] Years later, amidst a successful career as a Wilhelmina model and accomplished artist, Norris reshaped her rough draft into her first novel, Windchill Summer, which was published in 2000.[9] Windchill Summer illustrates the challenges of a young girl struggling to grow up in Arkansas during the Vietnam War era.[6] In 2007, Norris followed with the sequel, Cheap Diamonds, a story about a young woman leaving her small town home and moving to New York to become a model in the tumultuous 1970s.[6] Church's last novel was her own memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, published in 2010, explaining that the title described her life with Mailer, his seven children by his other wives, and her own two children: "Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don't know why I was surprised to see elephants".[10] Norris’s confident personality allowed her ventures down memory lane to paint a great and vivid picture of the life she led. She was not ashamed to tell of her embarrassing moments and really liked the fact that her husband “Mailer” found her life entertaining. She embraced her adventure filled life with grace and acceptance.<ref>https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u_1oNOkbDzVEUFrj2joANVxn_cHf_aVc</ref>

Norris, then a single mother living in Russellville, Arkansas and teaching high-school art, met her soon-to-be second husband, famed American author, Norman Mailer, at a book signing event.[7] Although Norris was married when she met Mailer, Norris packed her bags and she and her son moved to New York to continue her relationship with Mailer.[4] Even after Mailer divorced and remarried, Norris still maintained her relationship with Mailer.[4] Norris gave birth to Mailer's son, John Buffalo Mailer, in 1978 and eventually married Mailer in 1980 becoming Mailer's sixth and final wife.[12] Upon marrying Mailer, Norris became stepmother to two stepsons and five stepdaughters.[6] Norris spent the next three decades juggling successful careers as an artist/actress/writer, managing her home life, and her husband's career demands.[2] When Norris met Norman she knew he led a very eventful life and realized the only thing they had in common were their shared birthday of January 31 and sexual escapades. <ref>https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u_1oNOkbDzVEUFrj2joANVxn_cHf_aVc</ref>