Norris Church Mailer

Norris Church Mailer, an actress, model, author and painter who enjoyed and endured the ride of her life as the sixth and final wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, died at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She was 61. Her death was announced on the website of the Norman Mailer Society , which said she passed away "after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. " As Norris Mailer wrote in her 2010 memoir, "A Ticket to the Circus," she was a single mother in her mid-20s when she met the then-52-year-old Norman Mailer at a 1975 party in Russellville, Ark. Their attraction was immediate, even if he was breaking up with his fourth wife and seeing the woman who would become his fifth.

Norris Church Mailer, an actress, model, author and painter who enjoyed and endured the ride of her life as the sixth and final wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, died at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She was 61. Her death was announced on the website of the Norman Mailer Society , which said she passed away "after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. " As Norris Mailer wrote in her 2010 memoir, "A Ticket to the Circus," she was a single mother in her mid-20s when she met the then-52-year-old Norman Mailer at a 1975 party in Russellville, Ark. Their attraction was immediate, even if he was breaking up with his fourth wife and seeing the woman who would become his fifth.

Norman Mailer said he was "just along for the ride." Give us a break. The onetime enfant terrible of American letters has never willingly been known to take a back seat to anyone--although the other day he really tried. The female Mailer, his wife, Norris, was star of the pair's curious jaunt through L.A., to promote her own first book on local radio, TV, and at a home that's the L.A. social/political hot spot.

The voice explains a lot. You think, how could any woman live with the famously moody writer Norman Mailer for 33 years, and then you hear Norris Church Mailer's soft, authoritative, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice, with its 61-year-old Arkansas twang still intact, and you have a revelation about men and women. It is important to remember that "A Ticket to the Circus" (Random House: 432 pp., $26) is Norris's own memoir, not Norman's -- not even Mrs. Mailer's. It is the story of a girl, born in Arkansas in 1949, who came of age in the 1960s and struggled to find her way of contributing to the world, which was still a man's world.

The voice explains a lot. You think, how could any woman live with the famously moody writer Norman Mailer for 33 years, and then you hear Norris Church Mailer's soft, authoritative, Marilyn Monroe-ish voice, with its 61-year-old Arkansas twang still intact, and you have a revelation about men and women. It is important to remember that "A Ticket to the Circus" (Random House: 432 pp., $26) is Norris's own memoir, not Norman's -- not even Mrs. Mailer's. It is the story of a girl, born in Arkansas in 1949, who came of age in the 1960s and struggled to find her way of contributing to the world, which was still a man's world.

WINDCHILL SUMMER By Norris Church Mailer; Random House: 396 pp., $24.95 Can a woman write the great American novel? Would a woman want to? There's a village in Denmark called Skagen that has its own school of painters because the light is so eerily beautiful. In the 19th century, the men traditionally painted the sea and the boats and the horizon. The women began painting the kitchens and the people and the food and the chairs they sat on.

All I Can Handle: I'm No Mother Teresa A Life Raising Three Daughters With Autism Kim Stagliano Skyhorse, $24.95 This inspiring story offers plenty of lighter, humorous moments as the author describes her life since veering off "Suburban Mommy Street and onto the Autism Autobahn. " Autism, she explains, has a way of "keeping you on your toes, much like hot coals or ballet shoes ? " Apollo's Angels A History of Ballet Jennifer Homans Random House, $35 Ballet, the author explains in her comprehensive look at this 400-year-old form of dance, possesses "no fixed texts, because it is an oral and physical tradition, a storytelling art passed on, like Homer's epics, from person to person ?

WINDCHILL SUMMER By Norris Church Mailer; Random House: 396 pp., $24.95 Can a woman write the great American novel? Would a woman want to? There's a village in Denmark called Skagen that has its own school of painters because the light is so eerily beautiful. In the 19th century, the men traditionally painted the sea and the boats and the horizon. The women began painting the kitchens and the people and the food and the chairs they sat on.

Norman Mailer said he was "just along for the ride." Give us a break. The onetime enfant terrible of American letters has never willingly been known to take a back seat to anyone--although the other day he really tried. The female Mailer, his wife, Norris, was star of the pair's curious jaunt through L.A., to promote her own first book on local radio, TV, and at a home that's the L.A. social/political hot spot.