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Mailer's Final Gift
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Frank Delia
The inside story of how the legendary author’s friends and family kept his literary legacy alive with the creation of The Norman Mailer Writers Colony at his cherished home in Provincetown.
“Writing is spooky.
There is no routine of an office
to keep you going, only the blank
page each morning, and you never
know where your words are coming
from, those divine words.”
–Norman Mailer, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing (2003)
When I walked into the room, it was late in the day and Norman was sitting at one end of the dining-room table in the chair he always sat in, reviewing some page proofs and type samples from a still-untitled book. My wife, Kathy, was talking to Norris, Norman’s wife, in the living room of their home in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Norman looked up at me. I’d just returned from China. It was early August of 2007.
“So how is the Chinese art coming?” Norman said. His voice was weak and now lacked the boxer’s punch that he was known for.
“Larry, I had a dream about you. I was God and you were the Devil and we made a pact to fight technology. This is our last stand against technology.”
“Do you mean, have I started selling yet?” I replied with a little smile. I placed my 220 pounds down across from a now 96-pound Norman. I was to discover that Norman had lost most of his appetite.
“Read some of this. Mike [Lennon] and I have been talking about God and Random House loves it so much that they’re rushing it out,” Norman said with some satisfaction.
“What you mean is they want to get it into print before you die,” I replied. “What’s the title?
Norman named a few possibilities and I thought, So you want to let the world know what you think of God before you’re dead.
He looked up at me and, as if he were reading my mind, said, “I’m prepared to die, Larry. I won’t be alive by the end of this year.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“I can hardly take a breath. The scar tissue is all over my lungs.”
“So when are you going into the hospital?”
“Soon.”
Norman continued editing his text. The ocean was just outside the large bay window to his right; a breeze blew in through an open door at the end of wooden bar a few yards behind us. He was 84. I was 70. Both of us had heart serious conditions and were living on pills. After eight hours on the surgeon’s table, Norman had lost too much weight. I needed to.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
The Man Who Saw Everything
Lawrence Schiller began his career as a photojournalist for Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. He has published numerous books, including W. Eugene Smith's Minamata and Norman Mailer's Marilyn. He collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce, and with Norman Mailer on The Executioner's Song and Oswald's Tale. He has also directed seven motion pictures and miniseries for television; The Executioner's Song and Peter the Great won five Emmys.
Thanks for this story. I'm wondering if you were one of his cohorts on the train with him the day I met him?
I wrote about it here:
http://southerner.net/blog/2007/11/17/norman-mailer-dies-at-84/
Here's a better link:
On A Personal Encounter With Norman Mailer
No, that didn't work. How about this?
http://blog.locustfork.net/2007/11/10/norman-mailer-d/
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
I thought it was such a wonderful idea when I first read about it six weeks ago that I have already applied.
A fine piece of writing by Schiller, who salutes Mailer beautifully. The help that N.M. provided to the young nurse/writer is one of the best anecdotes I have heard about a man who filled his life with encounters that were funny and peculiar and generous.
On top of this, it's very much the case that we needed another writer's colony, particularly one that's not attached to stupid academic agendas.
L'chaim, Norman.
Thank you.
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