Mailer's Final Gift

Courtesy of Lawrence Schiller “So what will happen to the house?” Hans asked me.

“I know one thing: Norman didn’t want it to be lost to history.”

“So will the family keep it?”

As we continued to talk, one of us—I don’t remember who—first used the words “writers’ colony.” And they stayed there in the air, hovering, as our conversation moved on to other topics.

The next morning I mentioned the idea to Norris and a few of Norman’s kids. Norris noted that Norman had helped hundreds of writers over the years, reading and commenting on manuscripts, sending many to his agents and publishers, and answering questions in letters and giving advice on a writer’s life. I asked Norris if I could give the Colony a try and she replied, I think without giving it much thought, that she loved the idea and had no objections. Later that morning, Mike Lennon told me that he thought the house was the right place for students, writers, and scholars from all over the world to congregate. We agreed that the vision of the Colony would have to be as wide and as varied as Norman’s vision as a writer.

A few minutes later, I found myself standing in Norman’s third-floor writing room, which faced west. He would never again climb the 30 steps I had just climbed and sit down at his desk at the end of the room. He’d never again look out the big window, from which he could see the full sweep of the shore of Provincetown Harbor. I surveyed the room: exercise equipment, rarely used; three closets under the eaves stacked with books, not much floor space; a small bed under another eave; more bookshelves crammed with what looked like 2,000 books; folders with labels—Himmler, Goering, Hitler’s Bunker, Rasputin; a fax machine, a small box with dictionaries in various languages, some almost clawed apart from use. I lifted my camera and photographed his study. I felt so alone at that moment. But that feeling reinforced my will to preserve Norman’s legacy.

When I was 21 and working as a photojournalist covering the making of Anatomy of a Murder, the film director Otto Preminger said to me: “If you want to succeed, don’t be afraid to surround yourself with talented people.” To build a nonprofit, I knew I would need professional help.

Within a month I would be on the phone forming a committee of writers: Günter Grass, Joan Didion, William Kennedy, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

“Mike,” I said to Lennon on the phone, “can you help me out? I need to understand a lot more about the education establishment.” “Sam,” I said on the phone to Radin, the co-trustee of the Mailer estate, “I need to consult with you about forming a writers colony in Norman’s name.”

“Tom,” I said to Staley, the director of Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas where Norman’s archives resided, “can I come to Austin? I’d like to talk about your center’s involvement in the Colony.”

“Spas,” I said to Roussev, my friend, “I need some help in providing a good financial foundation for the Colony.”