A Ticket to the Circus

February 1, 2010
Norman Mailer's sixth and last wife holds her own in this lively memoir. In 1975, Norris (Cheap Diamonds
) was a 26-year-old divorced mother and hippie art teacher from Arkansas when the 52-year-old novelist swept her off her feet. Though aged and mellowed, he is still a handful: he throws a drink in Gore Vidal's face, gets busted with marijuana, hangs with Fidel Castro and the Ramones, and womanizes compulsively. Norris has retaliatory affairs and a past that includes trysts with a young Bill Clinton. Amid the Mailer juggernaut and the ex-wives, old girlfriends and seven stepchildren, Norris asserts her independence by dabbling in modeling, acting, and fiction, by matching her spouse in repartee, and by “hitting him and scratching him.” One gets a vivid sense of the couple's mutual attraction—she reprints bawdy love letters at embarrassing length—and prickly antagonisms; Norman is a warm, vital, bombastic literary lion, Norris the spunky belle determined to tame him. The author looks beyond her marital melodrama in well-wrought scenes that include a scary portrait of Jack Henry Abbott, the violent convict-writer Norman befriended, and an evocative travelogue in postcommunist Russia. This is a smart, intimate portrait of the glitterati and their discontents. 69 b&w photos.

April 1, 2010
Probably no one thought it would last, but the author's relationship with writer Norman Mailer endured and continued over 30 years despite a 26-year age difference, mutual infidelities, and illness. A writer in her own right ("Windchill Summer; Cheap Diamonds"), Mailer in this autobiography recounts her Arkansas childhood, previous marriage, meeting Norman, the subsequent move to New York to join him, their marriage, and later years together. The self-deprecating humor she employs throughout probably contributed to the success of her marriage to the famous author, which was the longest of his six unions. Her writing style is witty but also insightful as she describes the remarkable years she spent with Norman. She traveled the world, met celebrities and other literati, but also maintained a large family with strong bonds. Norris's own background is far from boring. In Arkansas, she taught art and dated Bill Clinton. Private letters and family photographs help complete this memoir. VERDICT Highly recommended for memoir enthusiasts and fans of both Mailers.Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll., Media, PA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2010
The sixth (and last) wife of Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, met the late writer in 1975, when she was 26 and he twice her age; they were married for 27 years. Her memoir is, among other things, the story of a series of emancipations: from the constraints of her loving but limiting parents and the claustrophobic moralism of her Arkansas hometown; from her first marriage to a man she quickly outgrew; and from her inhibitions about writing and creating art. And even though this book is very much a love story, chronicling the ups and downs of the authors stormy relationship with one of the twentieth-centurys gale-force literary personalities, another theme is the authors complicated emotional emancipation from Norman, precipitated by discovery of his many extramarital dalliances but also perhaps by the simple passage of time. All of this happens amid circumstances that are consistently larger than life: parties with the New York literati, summers in Provincetown, and socializing with Imelda Marcos after a Mohammad Ali fight. Theres even a cameo by a young William Jefferson Clinton. Captivating and often tender, this tale of personal growth also functions as something of a counterpoint to The Last Party (2003), a memoir by Normans second wife, Adele Mailer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)