A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir
June 23rd, 2010 by dennis
- ISBN13: 9781400067947
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A great American love story, this warm, funny, revealing memoir introduces the world to Norman Mailer’s greatest inspiration, his wife of more than thirty years. Like Zelda Fitzgerald before her, Norris Church Mailer has led a life as large and as colorful as her husband’s—and every bit as engaging.
Growing up a strict Free Will Baptist in the South of the 1950s, Norris Church, christened Barbara Jean Davis, was crowned “Little Miss Little Rock” at …
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June 23rd, 2010 at 6:56 am
Norris Church Mailer has written a love story of her life with Norman Mailer. He of the many wild affairs with women he couldn’t resist, the six wives, and the eight children. Theirs was a wild, exciting time, filled with one adventure after another and the crises that ensued. Norris has had a wonderful life but not without trials and tribulations.
Norris was born in Arkansas with the name Barbara Jean. She had the southern upbringing that gave her the southern drawl and style that permeates much of her book. Her mother and father were from poor, hard working families, and Barbara Jean knew what it was like to use an outhouse. Her grandfather was a ‘mule skinner’ or mule trainer, and Norman used to tease her about her heritage. Her mother had periods of depression most of Barbara’s life, but all in all, she had a happy life. She went to college, married her high school sweetheart and had a son, Matt. They married too young and divorce followed. Barbara Jean became a high school art teacher, and she was an excellent teacher- her students became her friends. This was just before the hippie revolution with free love and sex, and Barbara Jean loved the free and easy style. Barbara Jean met Norman Mailer at a book signing and that was that. A few meetings later, Barbara Jean moved to be with him in New York City. She had to leave her son with her parents, but she vowed to bring him to NYC as soon as she could.
Barbara Jean said the minute she stepped off the plane in NYC, she found her home. Norman met her at the airport and he gave her a kiss that lasted until they got to Brooklyn where he lived. Barbara Jean met his family, and in particular, his mother, who was the light of Norman’s life. They hit it off and that was the beginning of Barbara Jeans acceptance into the family. Barbara Jean became a model and changed her name to Norris Church. Norris was her married name, and she loved church, so it fit together. Norman had told her about his many wives and children and one by one she came to meet them. He was still married to wife #4, but involved with another woman. It was all very complicated and a little intimidating. Norris found her place in the family and organized the group, took care of all of the events and important times in the lives of this large family. She was able to bring her son Matt to her new life and he fit in perfectly. After a few years she became pregnant and Norman decided it was time to divorce wife #4 and marry Norris. After a long and winding road, Norman divorced #4, married the woman who was to become wife #5, to make the child from that union legitimate and finally married Norris. The heart and hearth of the family was finally the wife of the man she loved. Their life was full of politics and parties and traveling and fun. Meeting and greeting the famous and infamous. Trips to Cuba and Russia and all over the world. Their favorite place was their home in Provincetown. Their life was hectic, full of children and also full of love.
Norris was an artist and writer in her own right. Norman, however, never gave her that due. Maybe he wanted only one famous person in the family. Norris sold many paintings and later on went on to write her own books and was successful. Life was good. It was not until many years into their marriage that Norris discovered that Norman was unfaithful, and as she was to find, many many women were part of Norman’s life. Some of the women were older with some girth and as Norman told her, sometimes he wanted to be the ‘pretty one’. Somehow Norris was able to get past these many infidelities, and they made a happy life. She says that sex bound them together, and the love they had for each other. At one point, Norris discovered she had cancer, and she went through many surgeries, chemotherapies and treatments for a virulent bowel cancer and somehow survived. Norman had cardiac surgery and from that time on his health failed. The most important man in the lives of the Mailer family died in 2007. Norris has gone on to make her own life. Her children and grandchildren are a big part of that life. She is still fighting the cancer that has followed her, but she remains upbeat. After all, she has lived the life she wanted and in the manner that suited her.
An entertaining and uplifting story in some aspects. Norris Mailer gave up some of her life for the man she loved, but she did it willingly. Some women would not have followed the life she chose. But in my mind, she is a strong and independent woman and one to admire.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-07-10
Cheap Diamonds: A Novel
Windchill Summer: A Novel (Ballantine Reader’s Circle)
Rating: 4 / 5
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:26 am
Mailer, Norris Church. “A Ticket to the Circus; A Memoir”, Random House, 2010.
Mailer’s Wife Speaks
Amos Lassen
Norris Church Mailer is the last wife of literary giant Norman Mailer and she starts her memoir with her own story. She pulls us into her life and we overlook some her writing and some of her gossip. She is from Atkins, Arkansas and she was raised both poor and religious. In 1975 she met Norman Mailer at a friend’s party and it was magic. They built a life that was held together by sex. When they met Mailer was married to another woman, was living with yet another and was having an affair with a third as well as playing with other women. When they married, he brought with him seven children, then they had a child together and she still had a son from an earlier marriage. But it isn’t the children that she writes about, it is the life they shared and the people they knew. She was mailer’s lady and she was clever enough to keep up in his literary world and as a jet-setter.
She was the other half of Norman Mailer’s life and she stood by him even when she knew that he was cheating on her. He stayed with her and he said that she was “the nicest person” he’d ever met. She kept him calm and ran his house and took care of the mundane chores like cooking and shopping. She was the writer’s wife and she could handle his moods. Norris Mailer was also an artist who painted portraits for the famous and she wanted to write.
Of late she received a cancer diagnosis and when she came home from the hospital, Mailer moved her down the hall and left her to herself. She loved him and this is why she stayed with him. He was a brilliant, intelligent man who was a name.
I really enjoyed the book and I think I got not only an inside look of the author but of Norman Mailer was well. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be married to such a man and she does her best to tell us. The book is personal, witty and revealing and the author is blunt and honest. I see why Mailer loved Norris Church.
Rating: 5 / 5
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:19 am
This remarkable and wonderful book by a remarkably courageous and wonderfully warm woman is a must-read for anyone interested in great loves, bravery in the face of cancer, or Norman Mailer. Norris Church Mailer was Norman’s sixth wife and (as she always stated) “the last one.” During their “warm and wonderful” (Norman Mailer) and sometimes turbulent thirty-three years together, Norris showed herself to be a loyal and loving wife, a fine mother to two and stepmother to seven, an accomplished teacher, artist, model and occasional actress. She is also an excellent writer, as readers of her two novels, WINDCHILL SUMMER and CHEAP DIAMONDS can attest. This is her best book by far: funny, witty, candid and self-effacing. Now I finally know what “a courageous battle against cancer” means. Above all, this volume is magnetic, engrossing, infused with the fire of a unique personality. I couldn’t put it down.
Rating: 5 / 5
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Just when you think this book about the much older Mailer and the younger, beautiful Church is going to play out into a mismatch, there are many surprises…
Norris Church has a big heart, and manages to pull Mailer’s family together. Instead of overwhelming gratitude, Mailer, an old man, continues to have affairs, while Church faces a debilitating cancer. Yet, what comes out of this wonderful biography is Church’s love for Mailer, his brilliant mind, and their strong physical attraction. I came to admire both–Mailer for his dedication to providing for his family–as she stated, he worked hard to “make a buck” and send the children to good schools. She held down the fort and endured a certain amount of loneliness. He was brilliant and captivating, and, as the author said, she remained in his “thrall,” but she was no milquetoast either.
On a personal note, I met Norris Church (and Norman Mailer) when I was a college student at BYU. They were at the Provo City Council to give a short talk about The Executioner’s Song for a very small group– Mailer even read and left the cuss words out of the passage out of respect for “the Mormons,” as he put it. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. After the talk, my girlfriend and I chatted with Norris, and she could not have been nicer–we were just college kids but I remember her sweetness and her beauty. Reading this book, makes one “fall in love” with both of them despite their flaws…
Rating: 5 / 5
June 23rd, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Norris Church became my 24/7 companion during the course of reading this wonderful book. Through her amazing storytelling, you feel the pulse of her marriage, her thirst for adventure, her generous heart and the wild ride she decided to take with Norman Mailer. A fascinating read!
Rating: 5 / 5