Customer Reviews

A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

Addendum: Norris Church Mailer died on Sunday, 11-21-10. May she rest in peace.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-07-10

Cheap Diamonds: A Novel

Windchill Summer: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

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.

Usually, I enjoy learning about people I know nothing about (I guess that's why memoirs are my favorite type of literature), but this memoir should have been an autobiography, given the fact that it went on and on and on about every small detail of her life. I can read a good memoir in 2-3 days, but this one dragged on to 7 days of boring, dull reading, to the point that I was skimming from the middle to the end of the book, something I never do.

She had a few interesting tales from her life, but I found that I was often annoyed by her. She seemed constantly obsessed with herself and went on in grand detail about her sex life with her husband, to the point where she put in the letters from Norman Mailer about his desires (she was 26 and he was older than her father by a year... not really Harlequin romance material in my eyes) once he'd leave his wife and be with her.

This could have been more interesting if she'd left out the massive amount of unnecessary detail.

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...

If she had not been associated with Norman Mailer, especially at the end of his life, "Norris Church" (nee Barbara Davis) would have remained a sometime model, artist and actress, and the details of her early life would have remained only of interest to herself and her immediate family. Why she spends the first third of this book on her own childhood is hard to understand except for maybe page-count purposes. The book should have summarized her early life succintly, then moved on to her introduction to Mr. Mailer.

There is no question that Ms. Church expresses herself well in words, but she doesn't talk about much that is inherently interesting. Mr. Mailer comes across as a brilliant narcissist who thrives on commotion - but is a man who has eight children by six women (or whatever, I lost count) a compelling character, even if he is sporadically witty and generous, gives lots of parties, and has many famous friends and numerous extramarital liaisons? After reading the book, I didn't feel I "knew" Norman Mailer any more deeply by virtue of having read about the chaos of his existence. I felt I had just spent way too much time with two incredibly self-centered people.

Norris Church was a young woman living in Arkansas when she met and fell in love with one of the most famous and talented writers of the 20th century. She writes, "I had never met anyone like him. He was fresh and enthusiastic about every subject, politics and religion being two of his favorites...and he was determined to assert his reputation as the best lover in the world." Thus began her long-term relationship with Norman Mailer, which survived fights, divorces, legal hassles, infidelities, world tours, ex-wives and their children, marriage --- and ended with Mailer's death in 2007. But, thanks to this taut, well-paced memoir, that love --- and the affair it grew out of --- will live on.

Norman Mailer was a golden boy on the literary scene, one of those touched-by-magic geniuses whose first novel (THE NAKED AND THE DEAD) was an instant bestseller, a man whose many books the critics might pan but the readers rushed to buy. He also had a knack for keeping his products flying off the shelves by lecturing and promoting them with verve, at his best in the spotlight. I attended one of his promo-lectures at the University of North Carolina in the late 1960s. Notorious for his use of four-letter words, Mailer's appearance was initially closed to female students, but that ban was later rescinded. So I got in, along with a large collocation of male professors, eager lit students of both genders and some frat boys who came hoping Mailer would wax foul-mouthed. He did not disappoint them; he started the talk with a joke so dirty I am still embarrassed to recall it. And though the laughs were only scattered, he had scored, slipping past the censors and gathering an audience of women to shock (and charm), boys to amuse, and the literati to impress.

That was typical of Mailer --- short, scrappy and sexual --- in the early days of his heady fame. Later, after six wives and nine children, he may have calmed down somewhat (Church indicates that there were quiet days devoted to her and to the kids), but Mailer always needed and attracted the hurly-burly. One of the most fascinating vignettes in a book literally stuffed with them was Mailer's experience in Manila where he was covering the notorious "thrilla" boxing bout between Mohammed Ali and George Frazier. Before the fight, Mailer and Church were invited to meet Ali in his suite where he paced in a white caftan reciting vague, soporific poetry and playing gracious host to everyone, whispering in Church's ear, "You're so beautiful." During the fight, a slow, titanic bloodbath, Church says, "I thought at times I was going to faint from the heat and the brutality, but I just sat down and closed my eyes for a minute, and then they popped open again. I had to see what was going on."

With Mailer, a generous man who found ways to buy her gifts from their earliest encounters, Church met Imelda Marcos, Fidel Castro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Oscar de la Renta...well, the list could go on and on. The book fairly sparkles with the brightness of Mailer's circle. Church was obviously a star of a woman destined for a glamorous life, having once had a brief affair with Bill Clinton pre-Mailer. In this frank memoir she only occasionally holds back, striking a reasoned balance between titillating tell-all and crisp factual narrative. She is a writer too after all, and a painter and former model.

In fact, between Mailer and Church, there is little to be done in this old world that they did not get a shake at. They shared the same birth date (the years did not match, of course, she being about half his age), and he gave her the name she now carries (she was born Barbara Davis), brilliantly ordaining her his spiritual, fraternal twin. She swore to him that she'd never write about him, but she has and makes a success of it. A TICKET TO THE CIRCUS is a romantic tale told by a romantic character who played an essential role in the romantic life of a romantic genius.

If Mailer's ghost still pervades the physical world, I'm sure it is smiling --- for her, for her book, and for them.

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!

I just finished this book and couldn't wait to write a review, recommending it to all amazon readers who cherish good writing, wonderful stories about famous and not-so-famous people, family sagas and poignant moments in life and death. Mrs. Mailer has achieved a wonderful feat: telling us in enough ribald detail about Norman Mailer's personality that we feel we know this larger-than-life person. She has also drawn a complex picture of marriage to this remarkable man, and of the drama inherent in their lives.

The writing is excellent; the details about their various homes, parties, and famous people are vivid; and the sad parts of the book are beautifully drawn.

Mrs. Mailer has created a book that is very hard to put down and totally absorbing, as well as unforgettable.

It's a mistake to buy this book for what you might consider the juicy, two-timing Norman parts, where wannabe women trailed him like alley cats and he, like so many men of his ilk, always a sucker for a sycophant, gave in and let them have their ways with him. It would be a mistake to get stuck there, because that ain't the cherry on top of this memoir, it more like the crumbs under the table.

What this book is about is a life lived fully and beautifully by a little girl from Arkansas, a little girl with big trusting eyes, a wise soul full of faith, and a forever innocent heart that took delight in everything that came her way, and boy did it come her way, and boy did she buy that ticket to the circus, went in and never left, leaving her southern God fearing childhood behind, she became Norman's sixth and final wife and the only one who he ever considered his peer.

That's what's important in this book. Norris (nee Barbara) was and remains a very bright light all on her own. She's an original. You'll find few memoirs as honest as this one. She pulls no punches. She tells the truth, she knows no other way.

Norman was terribly in love with her and she with him. His love letters to her, which she shares in this book, make you love the guy. But this book makes you love her. She is the ultimate woman, wise, beautiful, beguiling, able to weave together a blended family of many ex-wives and nine children while she painted portraits of the rich and famous, wrote stories, wrote and directed plays, edited her husbands work, cooked fabulous southern meals, traveled, entertained and engendered devotion from her family and a myriad of friends. She was Norman's muse. He could never get over his luck in marrying her. But, he was also jealous of her and he demonstrated it in nasty ways. He was blustery and smart and celebrated, but Norris is a steady high beam of light, the kind you come into the world with. Everyone loved her, men and women alike.

Throughout her fabulous complicated life which she shares in this book, from the beginning until today, she remains truly humble and grateful for everything that came her way. When the tough times came and they did, illness, hers, his, her parents, she soldiers on taking care of them all. And when she discovers the betrayals you feel the pain with her and travel with her to the detached state that forever changes things. But, she rallies and rises to take care of everyone and everything in her keeping. This memoir is one of the best I've read. I didn't want it to end.

I strated reading this book at the recommedation of a friend of mine. It was worth the read-at times, I couldn't put it down. Norris Church Mailer did a great (and honest) job of discussing her life; from growing up in a conservative (and sometimes stifling) Southern Baptist household with well-meaning (but often misguided) parents. I laughed out loud at her description of family and "church life". I could identify with her because I was also raised Baptist. Despite Church-Mailer's conservative background (and her unconventional divorce), she eventually became an art teacher-and started meeting other artists and writers; this is how she met Norman Mailer. Despite Norman Mailer's greatness as a writer, Church-Mailer did a great job of describing his fragmented private life (five wives and seven children for "starters"). From the day they met, they were a "couple"; even though he was still married to someone else. Their dating situation was a bit strange-but from the letters he wrote and her disscussions about them; it seemed that they were a couple that would be long-term. All wasn't good, however; Norman Mailer could be dismissive (especially about her writing), immature (he didn't want to be around her when she became seriously ill), and angry (he had a long-term feud with novelist Gore Vidal), for example. Church-Mailer was also blinded by her love for him. She found out many years later about Mailer's numerous affairs. She was led to believe that since she worked hard to keep his extended family (ex-wives and stepchildren) "connected" and that she was often around him during lecture tours, he would "award" her by being faithful. That did not happen. The chapter where she discussed whether she wanted to be married to him at all was heartbreaking (she did seriously consider divorcing him to retain her self-respect). I feel that I may be discussing too much-but there's a wealth of information about her life (way before Norman Mailer came along) and about her life "after Mailer". Church-Mailer was the "glue" that kept their extended family together. In addition, their social circle were the "giants" of entertainment, art, wrting and politics. Norris Church-Mailer had a great (and sometimes tragic) life. May she rest in peace.