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.”