Dwayne Raymond

Dwayne Raymond’s memoir about his years with Norman Mailer has drawn an astounding emotional reaction from those who have had the opportunity to read advance copies. We would like to share some of those responses with you...


Dwayne,

I can't tell you how much I like the book. It's really an adventure story (your adventure), and your sense of pacing and detail is wonderful. You've got it all here: suspense, love, humor, intrigue, the list goes on. There's so much to reward the reader. Your characters are fully realized, and you have a skilled way of making real even the most peripheral characters. Even more important, I grew to trust you as a narrator, and that's invaluable. Your charm, wit, and sharp insights seemed almost always spot-on.

Again, fantastic work! It was a pleasure and thank you for allowing me the honor of an early read.

Michael Tonello
Author of Bringing Home the Birkin

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Dear Dwayne,

I just finished reading Mornings with Mailer. It is a deeply felt, extraordinarily moving memoir that vividly captures the private Norman Mailer as he was in the last years of his life. There, amid the hard work, the sorrow, the enduring bravery of the man, you stand as honest witness to who he was. It is an astonishing achievement.

At the heart of the book lies the interdependency of Norman, Thomas, Norris, Judith and you. What an unlikely quintet, bound together by love and need. One cannot read your account of those five friends without sharing in their sadness and wonderful improbability. Thank you for writing the book, for getting it to me, and for doing such a terrific job of it.

Best,
Dotson Rader
Features writer, Parade Magazine

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Dear Dwayne,

What a beautiful and tremendous book you have written. I finished reading it this morning, here in London, and immediately felt proud of you for having written it. The great task, I always assumed, would be to find a way to capture the vitality and the great humanness of Norman, and that you have done, in spades. But as Norman would have appreciated -- as all novelists will appreciate -- it also had to be the story of a place, Provincetown, and a working sensibility, his, as well as another story, the friend and colleague's story, yours. You have joined these things together perfectly. My countryman, the great inventor of modern biography, James Boswell, said when writing his Life of Johnson that his aim was to bring the fierce intelligence and humor of the man in full view of the reader, and I thought of Boswell as I watched you cooking and helping Norman. Your description of the making of Castle in the Forest is a piece of sustained critical excellence as well. He couldn't have wished for a more sensitive accomplice and friend.

So, across the oceans, dear Dwayne, I salute you. Your book is a service to literature and a testament to your own powers. We authors are a small and brutal tribe, but we recognize a happy day when we see one, which comes with the arrival of good work. You have written from the centre of your substance, and Norman's, which is a complete victory for art.

My very best,
Andrew O’Hagan
Author: Be Near Me, The Missing, Our Fathers, Personality and The Atlantic Ocean: Essays, 2008

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Dear Dwayne,

I enjoyed every page! It's such an honest — almost naked account of a truly remarkable relationship with not only a great man, but a family, a house and a place. That's no mean feat. On every level it really worked for me. It was fascinating to see how NM wrote and researched.

What comes over all the time is what an extraordinary father he was. Good fathers don't make interesting copy for journalists so I guess we all had a very distorted portrait of him because the bad news stories grabbed headlines. I loved the way you wove in the not so good bits too — the demands and grouches and difficulties. There was nothing sentimental about the book because all of you were so rounded and real and yes, sometimes not in a good place, which is what makes us all human. There are so many strands to the book — your journey as a writer and also your personal relationships and history.

It's such a rich book with themes and dilemmas which resonate with all of us who have families and have lost people who were important in our lives, and for whom questions remain unanswered and leave us searching. The fact that you could make it so accessible and funny and moving — for this reader anyway — makes me look forward very much to your next book!

Sue Fox
Features Writer, The Sunday Times Magazine, London

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“Mornings with Mailer is a tender and affectionate view of the protean author at the end of the Big Novel that was his life. Dwayne Raymond’s book offers a uniquely intimate perspective on one of our literary giants. Applause.”

“In this moving memoir, Dwayne Raymond provides an intimate look at the daily routine of a great writer in the last years of his life. Raymond poignantly describes how Mailer fought like a lion to continue writing even as age and illness slowed him down.”
“Dwayne Raymond adds another dimension to our appreciation of a great man’s genius, the paradoxes of his genial belligerence, his obstinacy at once maddening and endearing, and his unaffected originality. This is a fascinating touching memoir, and often funny too.”