Norris Church Mailer, American author and model, died from gastrointestinal cancer she was , 61

 Norris Church Mailer (born Barbara Jean Davis  in Brooklyn Heights)^[1][2] was the widow of American novelist Norman Mailer, and author of the memoir A Ticket to the Circus and of several novels died from gastrointestinal cancer she was , 61.
Prior to her relationship with Mailer, she married Larry Norris, gave birth to son Matthew in 1972, and was divorced in 1975. After her divorce, she claimed to have "had a fling" with Bill Clinton.^[3]

(January 31, 1949 in Atkins, Arkansas, – November 21, 2010)

Life with Norman Mailer

After her divorce, she lived in Russellville, Arkansas, taught high-school art,^[2] and wrote about a hundred pages of a novel, which she would later reshape into Windchill Summer, and publish in 2000.
She had read Norman Mailer's biography of Marilyn Monroe and arranged in 1975 to attend a party in Russellville at which he was the guest. They reportedly went to her home after that party.^[3] After he left Arkansas, she mailed him a love poem, which he returned to her, marked up with his compositional criticism.^[2] Four months later, having left her job,^[2] she moved with his help to a brownstone row house^[4] apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and became a model with Wilhelmina Models.^[2] She took on as a first name her former married name (Norris), and took Mailer's suggestion of "Church" as a surname.^[3]
Their son, John Buffalo Mailer, was born in 1978. They married in 1980,^[3] Church says she decided, in the early 1990s, to leave her relationship with him, over his extensive affairs, but he persuaded her otherwise.^[3]
Norman Mailer died in 2007.^[1] She published her memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, in 2010, and explains the title as describing her life with him, his seven children by his other wives, and her own two birth-children: "Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don't know why I was surprised to see elephants."^[3]

Health

From 2000 onwards, she had had six major operations for gastrointestinal cancer, the disease which would claim her life.^[2] She died on November 21, 2010 at her home in Brooklyn Heights following her eleven year battle with cancer.^[5]

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