Norris Church Mailer
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Norris Church Mailer (born Barbara Jean Davis; January 31, 1949 – November 21, 2010) was an American novelist, actress, artist, and model. Norris published two novels, ''Windchill Summer'' and ''Cheap Diamonds'', and a
memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...
, ''A Ticket to the Circus'', which focuses on her nearly thirty-year marriage to
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...
.


Early life

Barbara Jean Davis grew up in
Atkins, Arkansas Atkins is a city in Pope County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 3,016 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Russellville Micropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Atkins is located at (35.243485, -92.938212). According to the U ...
, where her mother owned the local beauty shop and her grandparents were sharecroppers. As a child, she was severely affected by her mother's bouts of depression and was hospitalized and given electroshock treatments. Davis and her family were simple country people who attended church faithfully. When she was twenty years old, she married her high school sweetheart, Larry Norris, and together they had one son, Matthew. By 1975, at just 25 years old, she had divorced her first husband and had worked several jobs including working in a pickle factory and as a bookkeeper. Shortly after her divorce from Norris, she claimed to have "had a fling" with future U.S. President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
. Norris and her young son moved to
Russellville, Arkansas Russellville is the county seat of and the largest city in Pope County, Arkansas, United States, with a 2022 estimated population of 29,133. It is home to Arkansas Tech University. Arkansas Nuclear One, Arkansas' only nuclear power plant is nea ...
and she explored her love of the arts by working as a high school art teacher; however, everything changed when she met
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...
.


Writing

Norris was interested in writing and wrote about a hundred pages of a novel loosely based on herself as a young girl growing up in Arkansas. Still in the early days of their relationship, Norris showed her rough draft to Mailer for his opinion, to which he responded, "It's not as bad as I thought it would be", causing Norris to put her work aside for the next several decades. Years later, amidst a successful career as a Wilhelmina model and accomplished artist, Norris reshaped her rough draft into her first novel, ''Windchill Summer'', which was published in 2000. ''Windchill Summer'' illustrates the challenges of a young girl struggling to grow up in Arkansas during the Vietnam War era. In 2007, Norris followed with the sequel, ''Cheap Diamonds'', a story about a young woman leaving her small town home and moving to New York to become a model in the tumultuous 1970s. Church's last work was her own memoir, ''A Ticket to the Circus'', published in 2010, explaining that the title described her life with Mailer, his seven children by his other wives, and her own two children: "Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don't know why I was surprised to see elephants."


Life with Norman Mailer

Barbara Davis, then a single mother living in Russellville, Arkansas and teaching
high-school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
art, met her soon-to-be second husband,
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
winning author
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...
, at a book signing event. Although Mailer was married when she met him, she and her son moved to New York to continue her relationship with Mailer. Davis gave birth to a son with Mailer, John Buffalo Mailer, in 1978 and eventually married Mailer in 1980, becoming Mailer's sixth and final wife. She also became stepmother to two stepsons and five stepdaughters, and spent the next three decades juggling successful careers as an artist/actress/writer, managing her home life, and her husband's career demands. She described Norman Mailer as "the Henry Higgins to my
Eliza Doolittle Eliza Doolittle is a fictional character and the protagonist in George Bernard Shaw's play '' Pygmalion'' (1913) and its 1956 musical adaptation, ''My Fair Lady''. Eliza (from Lisson Grove, London) is a Cockney flower seller, who comes to Prof ...
," and often defended Norman against critics who claimed he was a misogynist; she also asked for his feedback on drafts of her novels, though his response was sometimes negative.


Model, actress, and artist

After moving to New York, Barbara Davis changed her first name to Norris (her first husband's last name), and her middle name to Church as suggested by Mailer, who decided the name suitable because of her faithful attendance of church while growing up. Norris soon began a successful career as a Wilhelmina model. Although Norris Church Mailer dedicated much of her time during the 1980s to caring for her extended family, she had a keen interest in the arts and held several successful one-woman showings of her art and worked as an actress in several films and television. Mailer's work as an actress included ''Jet Lag'' (1981), ''Ragtime'' (1981), ''
The Executioner's Song ''The Executioner's Song'' (1979) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events related to the execution of Gary Gilmore for murder by the state of Utah. The title of the book may be a play on "The Lord ...
'' (1982), ''Exposed'' (1983) and ''Chinese Coffee'' (2000). In 2010, Mailer portrayed herself in the documentary, ''Norman Mailer: The American''. She also played in the daytime soap ''
All My Children ''All My Children'' (often shortened to ''AMC'') is an American television soap opera that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, and on The Online Network (TOLN) from April 29 to September 2, 2 ...
.''


Health issues and death

In 2000, Norris was diagnosed with a malignant
gastrointestinal stromal tumor Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are the most common mesenchymal neoplasms of the gastrointestinal tract. GISTs arise in the smooth muscle pacemaker interstitial cell of Cajal, or similar cells. They are defined as tumors whose behavior i ...
and was told she would probably only live for two more years. Norris beat the odds and over the next 10 years had six major operations to fight the cancer, while taking care of her ailing husband. Norris died on November 21, 2010, aged 61, at her home in Brooklyn Heights in New York City.


Legacy

On June 26, 2004,
Wilkes University Wilkes University is a private university in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It has over 2,200 undergraduates and over 2,200 graduate students (both full and part-time). Wilkes was founded in 1933 as a satellite campus of Bucknell University, and bec ...
established the Norris Church Mailer Fellowship in Creative Writing. This is a summer workshop program to honor Norris Church Mailer as a writer and a board member. The workshop is an annual opportunity for creative writing students to receive financial assistance.


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mailer, Norris Church 1949 births 2010 deaths Schoolteachers from Arkansas Deaths from stomach cancer in New York (state) People from Pope County, Arkansas Writers from Arkansas People from Brooklyn Heights American female models American women novelists Actresses from Arkansas 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American memoirists Actresses from Brooklyn