cover image Mornings with Mailer: A Recollection of Friendship

Mornings with Mailer: A Recollection of Friendship

Dwayne Raymond. Harper Perennial, $13.99 (342pp) ISBN 978-0-06-173359-8

In 2003, hard at work and happily ensconced at his home in Provincetown, Mass., Norman Mailer invited young writer Raymond, a casual acquaintance, to become his assistant, beginning a relationship that would change Raymond's life and ease the end of the literary icon's. Raymond's responsibilities were varied, including researcher, cook, critic, and technology liaison, enabling him to catalog Mailer's idiosyncrasies in work and home life (""He would suggest I buy the best possible wine for dinner guests and then ask me to make sure we had plenty of Hershey's Bars""). Raymond was clearly enchanted with Mailer, and this intimate but respectful look at Mailer's life is entirely free of mudslinging; Mailer is portrayed as a devoted husband (to sixth wife Barbara), and an indulgent father. Through devoted eyes, Mailer emerges a witty, hard-working, tragic figure: discussing the Norman Mailer Society, he complains that ""most authors are dead who have these societies. I feel slightly pushed ahead."" Raymond also captures the sobering moments of a legend approaching its end, including a particular moving scene in which the extended family gathers around Mailer in a hospital room, passing around a clandestine rum cocktail.