I think Alex Witchel is a terrific writer. I’m not overly familiar with her work but Witchel’s profiles for the Times magazine are generally wonderful. Last fall, I was struck by a piece she did on the Irish novelist Colm Toibin, and this past weekend she wrote a lovely article on Norris Church Mailer.
Dig the lead:
It is 1975, and you are a 26-year-old high-school art teacher, the divorced mother of a 3-year-old boy, living in Russellville, Ark. You hear that a world-famous novelist is in town for one night, so you wangle an invitation to the party in his honor, hoping he’ll autograph your book. You find yourself smitten with this 52-year-old man — as he is with you — and at the end of the evening you go home together. After he leaves, you pour out your heart in a love poem and mail it to him. He mails it back — copy-edited, in red pencil. Do you:
a) Hop a plane to New York and strangle him with your bare hands?
b) Quit your job, move to New York with your son and become the guy’s sixth wife?
Reader, she married him. Not only that, she became stepmother to the seven children he fathered with his five other wives and had another son with him. Still with me? That makes nine children and Norman Mailer for a husband. As she has said herself: “Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don’t know why I was surprised to see elephants.”
It is not a long profile but it is written with compassion and an eye for the telling detail. Norris Church Mailer is a pretty nifty lady too.
Check, check it out.
Have you been to Arkansas? I have. I think that makes the choice rather easy, though it does not diminish the brilliance of the writing.
LOL. I just can't imagine having the stones to be married to a guy like Mailer.
I know. It's only Mailer that makes the choice even close.
Alex's features for the Times have been consistently fun to read for many years, although I have not found her novels to be nearly as good. Disclaimer: Alex and I were grad school classmates 30 years ago.
4) Was she a cool lady?
Hmmmm. Cool isn't the word I would choose. Opinionated, witty, sometimes caustic, a force not to be ignored or underestimated -- those might be better. You might want to check out an article in New York Magazine back in the late 80's (early 90's?) that would give you some insights. Another disclaimer: I'm quoted in the piece.