At Tribute, Mailer Children Recall a Family Man
There were plenty of celebrities, like Sean Penn and Joan Didion, at Norman Mailer’s memorial at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday afternoon. But the highlights of the tribute by far were the intimate glimpses of the outsize novelist presented by his large and sprawling family.
“What’s that like, having Norman Mailer as a father?” his stepson, Matthew Mailer, said he was constantly asked as a child. “It was like they were asking, ‘What’s it like being raised by wolves?’ ”
If that were the case, the stories — often poignant, more often funny — showed that many people might want to have a wolf for a father. For a writer obsessed with fame and the famous, he was the most devoted of family men, determined, said his oldest daughter, Susan Mailer, to weave together a single family unit from the nine children he raised with an assortment of wives.
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“What’s that like, having Norman Mailer as a father?” his stepson, Matthew Mailer, said he was constantly asked as a child. “It was like they were asking, ‘What’s it like being raised by wolves?’ ”
If that were the case, the stories — often poignant, more often funny — showed that many people might want to have a wolf for a father. For a writer obsessed with fame and the famous, he was the most devoted of family men, determined, said his oldest daughter, Susan Mailer, to weave together a single family unit from the nine children he raised with an assortment of wives.