Mailer's Final Gift

Lawrence Schiller “Lots to deal with, little time left.” Norman said as Mike Lennon came into the room. Both of us had known Norman for 30 years. Mike was a professor emeritus of English at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, had edited several of Norman’s books, and was now writing Norman’s authorized biography.

“Do you think we should discuss having a chair endowed in Norman’s name?” Lennon asked me. It was the first I’d heard about the idea.

“While I’m still alive?” Norman interjected.

“Why not?” Lennon replied.

“At Harvard,” I suggested.

“Harvard,” Norman repeated. The way he said it, it was obvious he was thinking of another university, even though he’d been an editor of the Harvard Advocate when he was a student there.

“Is there a university in Brooklyn or Manhattan that we should speak to?” I said, “And how much money does one need?”

“A million or one and a half,” Lennon said. “That would give you $70,000 to $80,000 a year for a full professor.”

Norman seemed bored with the conversation and went back to editing the pages before him. After a while, without looking up, he said, “Let’s talk about something like this book or what’s going to happen to this house. I’m not interested in a chair.”

A rush of thoughts flooded over me: What would become of the house?

The three-story brick edifice had been built in the early 20th century by a doctor, and its overhanging eaves were now covered with ivy. The huge living room featured floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the harbor. Just outside was a long wooden deck with five steps leading down to the ocean. Inside, all over the house, Norris’s large, striking paintings hung on the walls. Everywhere you looked were photos of Norman and Norris’s family.

They had begun coming here together in 1983, and had spent the great majority of their time in Ptown since the early 1990s. In the summers, the house would fill up with their kids, his sister’s family, their grandchildren, in-laws, and many friends. It was in this house that Norman had written great chunks of his 30 books. The house had become part of the town’s cultural heritage. Norman often said that Provincetown had become for him what Key West and Cuba were for Hemingway.

In some ways, at that moment the Norman Mailer Writers Colony was conceived. There was no concrete thought yet of a writers’ colony. It just became clear that this house, which fronted the beach and tasted the waters of the Atlantic, would continue to have a life after Norman.