Norris Church Mailer, 1949-2010

Norris Church Mailer, the widow of Norman Mailer, has died at the age of 61.  The cause was gastrointestinal cancer.  Mailer was born Barbara Jean Davis and was raised in poverty in Arkansas.  She became a high school art teacher and met Mailer in Russellville, AR when he came through town on a book signing tour.  She was half his age, but there was an instant attraction, or as she put it, "sex is the cord that bound us together."  They married in 1980 and eventually added their two children to his existing seven.  She put up with his many infidelities, worked as a Wilhelmina model, had art shows, and became a writer, herself.  She published two fiction novels and a well-received autobiography, A Ticket to the Circus, published earlier this year.  She was a great Southern dame, taken before her time.