A Great Amazon Review

Review Written by
H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA)
"A Thousand Really Good Mornings", February 2, 2010
Amazon Verified
From April, 2003 to November 2007 Dwayne Raymond worked for Norman Mailer as his editorial assistant, cook, driver, errand runner-- in short his Man Friday. More importantly he became Mailer's friend and confidant. Mr. Raymond made the great writer's life-- as well as the lives of his wife Norris and his nine children-- better. Because of Mr. Raymond's assistance, Mailer in the last years of his life gave the world four more works of literature including MODEST GIFTS and THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST. Mr. Mailer in turn gave much to Mr. Raymond as well. He offered him kind advice about life-- "You need to recognize exactly who you are. No one is going to do it for you. People will point out your flaws and sometimes, if you are lucky, your strengths, but their voice will always be varnished with envy and awe"-- and his relationship with his partner Thomas as well as on writing. He encouraged Raymond to read his words aloud, that they should "flow from the page to the eye with infinite ease." (I would argue that Mr. Raymond took Mr. Mailer's advice.)

In MORNING'S WITH MAILER Mr. Raymond in honest, beautifully-written prose recounts the precious time he spent with Mailer and gives us an unsentimental portrait of this great writer with all his quirks and biases. He believed that shopping malls were "America's supreme illustration of bad taste." He loved Hershey Bars and Dove Bars, calling the latter the perfect dessert. Raymond says that Mailer was almost always gracious to him, describes his sense of humor, his contempt for George Bush, his love of his country and Provincetown. Mr. Mailer could be stubborn-- Raymond calls him the last-word king-- but was surely magnanimous in that he paid one of his many ex-wives alimony for forty years and was un-judgmental when it came to what Raymond calls understanding "the oddities of living in an unconventional town like ours." After sharing a cab with Raymond's ex-partner dressed as Cher for his job at a drag bingo game, Mailer's only comment was, "He makes a good showgirl."

In Mr. Raymond's hands, Mailer comes alive as a fascinating and loving human being who worked crossword puzzles to comb his brain and gave us the recipe for "Berry Trio," raspberries, blueberries and chopped strawberries mixed into a sauce of cover honey and the juice from half a lemon.

This writer's silky prose would surely have pleased his mentor-- with phrases like "cluttered truth" or his early-on meetings with Mr. Mailer before he started working for him as "happy accidents seasoned with significance." Drinking is "bottled bravery." Then there are these beautiful words: "The day was gray, tarnished with a drear that persuades the ocean and the sky to merge perfectly into one destination."

The last time Raymond saw Mailer, shortly before his death, was in a hospital in New York City. Because of a breathing tube, he could only speak with his eyes; but Raymond understood them to say "a thousand really good mornings." I would describe this first-class memoir as three hundred or so really fine pages.

The Latest Exit

THE LATEST EXIT

January 28, 2010 For the Huff Post

I’m weighted down today with a sentiment of loss; loss of a friend who was close, and yet I never knew beyond his pages. Salinger has left the building and the literary world is all the more empty for it. What makes it doubly difficult is that I am in the process of launching my first book, Mornings with Mailer, and I had it in the back of my fanciful head somewhere that somehow a copy of it might fall into his hands up there in Cornish, New Hampshire, someday and he’d actually deign to read it since it is about one of his contemporaries who, sadly, also left us two and a half years ago. Norman Mailer once made a remark about Salinger to the effect that he was a great mind that never quite left prep school. I believe it was both a sarcastic crack and a perceptive remark of praise because Norman did like Salinger’s work; in fact, he said to me on several occasions that he would have liked to have seen what the man could write about other than angst at 17, and that readers were on the losing end because they were likely to never know. And so as I sit here, prepared to launch my own book, I realize I’m mired in a bit of a twaddle: mixed emotions abound.

When I first began writing Mornings with Mailer about 2 years ago I had no idea what to expect on several levels. I didn’t know if the book would live up to the expectations of those who are devoted to Norman’s work, and I was uncertain that I had the chops to write a book about our time together. Actually, Mornings with Mailer is not entirely about Norman, although he is obviously at the core of it. I aimed to forge a good story about what can happen when a munificent, famous writer, a literary Lion of incalculable importance to American letters, opens his study door to a young writer and takes him on as his assistant and, ultimately, confidant. What I ended up with, I’m told, is a warm tale of the last five years of Norman’s life and a chronicle of my own growth as not only a writer but a man better able to navigate the world. Rather like the young me who had read Salinger’s work has come to face himself thirty years later, and can do so with a modicum of confidence—thanks to the superior assist by the author of The Naked and the Dead.

Writers are generally private, mostly quiet people and I’m told that I’m no exception to that stereotype. So, when I occasionally spoil myself by typing Mornings with Mailer into Google to see what’s up with the book I feel as if I’ve been ratted out by people I don’t even know. But of course I’m the culprit, ultimately, because I wrote the damn book and solicited its publication! In essence, I’m responsible for my own ego’s discomfort. Arguably, the act of publishing a book that many will likely (hopefully?) read is a form of self-imposed mental cruelty—but one that every writer is compelled to indulge. And so one comes to a point of acceptance; one must acknowledge having gone public and learn to balance it with the excitement that publication spurs. Everyone except, perhaps, Mr. Salinger.

I recall when Norman would ask me to send off the final drafts of his books he would repair to the dining room to play solitaire for a long while and shut out the world. He knew his manuscript was out there now, and there was little he could do but hope it found an agreeable spot in the minds of his readers and critics. To that point, there was nothing else for him to do but take pleasure in his cards and let the hours skate by until dinner—his favorite time of day. I recall thinking how much I admired that ability in him to calmly send his child (manuscript) off after nurturing it along for years. I always told myself that if I got my books published I’d try to behave the same way, manifest that same control. But I’ve failed. I realize now that Norman’s ability to remain unruffled in the face of public exposure was one that he’d honed over 55 years of practice. So I’ve some work ahead of me where this particular mixture of excitement and fear are concerned. There are moments that I understand too well the quirky silence of J.D. Salinger; because I’m not finding a gracious balance between the two emotions. But I’m happy to have banked the image of Norman getting on with his life as his books went out into the world, and getting on meant being his own most ardent advocate of his work. He took a well deserved rest, and then he stridently publicized his books.

I want to be like Norman was when it comes to launching my book: know the work is done, and know even more that the work is just beginning. As a writer now one must speak loudly and often to have one’s book noticed. Maybe the loudest thing Salinger ever did was remain quiet, and that in itself is a kind of brilliance none of us can fathom in a world of digital clatter.

So long, Holden. Don’t forget your very cool hunting hat. And say howdy to my pal Norman, will you?

Signing Books....

This was the first books signing I did eight days ago
at the American Library Association in Boston at the
convention center there. Eight Thousand librarians
2200 exhibitors. I signed about 70 or 80 books
that afternoon and it felt good. Everyone seemed
eager to read Mornings...and I'm eager to have them
do it.


I'll be posting more photos of other events as they
happen.

News about Mornings with Mailer

By Melora B. North
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jan 22, 2010 @ 11:59 AM
CAPE COD, Mass. —

When Dwayne Raymond of Provincetown, Mass., signed on to help Norman Mailer in 2003, he never dreamed it would become a life-altering experience. Certainly he never planned to parlay his exquisite journey into a memoir that touches the heart and offers a brilliant glimpse into the great author’s life and family. But he has.

Raymond’s book, “Mornings With Mailer,” goes on sale Jan. 26.

“I didn’t want to write the book at the beginning, I had never even thought of it,” Raymond says. “A Random House editor approached me and asked me to think about it. Then I decided, why not? I wanted to set the record straight.”

With so many stories floating around about Mailer’s tough demeanor and opinionated perspectives, Raymond was determined to paint an updated picture of the man in his twilight years.

“Once I got into the book it was cathartic, a positive end for me. At his core he was really an educated, refined gentleman, I wrote from my experiences with him. I don’t write about anyone else’s opinion in this book.”

In Raymond’s offering the reader gets a very different glimpse into Mailer and the busy Provincetown brick house where he and his wife, Norris, lived when not in their Brooklyn apartment.

Poker games, tours of the West End of town, dinner parties, there was always something going on when Mailer was not seriously engrossed in his writing or endless research. And Raymond was at the steering wheel of the chaos in this eclectic household filled with creative people intent on living life to its fullest.

Whether he was at the machine making copious copies of notes and research papers or in the kitchen making magic with food, Raymond was not only an attentive assistant to Mailer but a devoted friend and student who was constantly astonished by the unexpected challenges of each new day.

“Every day was full of surprises,” he says. “I never knew if I would be studying Nazis one day or turn-of-the-century Yiddish films the next. Who knew they had them?” He laughs. “I learned so many different things, it was a whim of the whole endeavor.”

Raymond was used to adventure and excitement. After attending Lyndon College in Vermont, he took off for Europe where he visited and traveled with friends. Tired of spending so much money on transportation, Raymond cleverly decided to become a flight attendant on international flights so he could travel and not have to foot the bill.

After three and a half years in the sky, he changed careers. He lived in Boston where he wrote for several publications. He was also a writer and producer for the NBC daytime news magazine show “Real Life” and served as an associate producer for MTV’s “Real World Boston.” In 1998 he moved to Provincetown so he could concentrate on his writing.

“Then of course I became a waiter,” he says, laughing — in his case a very fortuitous move.

One night he tended to the Mailers and struck up a friendship with the Mailer family. A few years later Raymond was invited to become Mailer’s assistant.

“We liked being together,” he says. “They accepted me and I accepted them. I got a lot from all of them; they got a lot from me. I worked with Norman all week and sometimes went over there on the weekend just to hang out. Not once did Norman ever say I worked for him, he always said I worked with him.”

Anticipation 1

In the course of the next two months my first book will be coming out.(January 26, 2010 to be precise.) I feel great about it but I think there's a certain need to be respectful of the accompanying fear that goes along with that fanciful anticipation. For instance, I don't know, exactly, what I'll be doing at all these events the publisher is lining up. What will I read? Do I figure that out depending on the geographical location or do I go with my gut and twist the audience a bit by not reading what they might expect?

When I was with Norman Mailer for all those years he had the same bit of trepidation, believe it or not. He was always over-prepared for his events. i.e., he had a propensity for asking me to make sure that he had several selections to read from. I don't know that he actually liked to read for audiences--I think he liked speaking off the cuff more, but honestly I never asked him and he never offered it up. What I DID learn from him was that a writer has to sell his work. Yup, even Mailer. He felt an obligation to do what he needed to do to make sure that the work was read and that people knew HE had written it. They may not have always gotten it (it was often complicated) and they may not have wholly embraced his opinions but they knew for sure that he had something important to say. And, when he greeted an audience he tried, I believe, to embrace them in the most honest way. He spoke and let his eyes twinkle and he seduced them. And he was always engaging and polite.

Obviously that is a hard act to follow. I have no intention of trying beyond the action of showing up, reading a bit of the book I've written about him (about us) and then informing the listeners that Norman was a good man; a good father and husband and friend.

What more is there really?

It is my hope that people will follow this blog (as soon as it's discovered!) and see that this writer who is here for you to read is rife with doubt and excitement.
So, let the games begin. Tick tick goes the clock, down to the time when my book is to be released. I hope you read it if you've stumbled upon this blog site. I hope there is something good in it that strikes you. Mornings with Mailer was a work of love. That's all I have to say about it. Of course I've much more to say, to write, but that is for later posts. Cheers!