Random House and the family of Norman Mailer will present “The Time of His Time: A Celebration of Life of Norman Mailer,” which will take place at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 4 PM and will be open to the general public.
Charlie Rose will serve as the Master of Ceremonies, and among the speakers will be Joan Didion, William Kennedy, Lonnie Ali, Don DeLillo, Tina Brown, and Sean Penn. All nine of Mailer’s children as well as his wife of 33 years, Norris Church Mailer, his sister Barbara Wasserman, his cousin, Sam Radin, and his nephew, Peter Alson, will participate. Several members of The Norman Mailer Society Board, including Congressman Neil Abercrombie, Ivan Fisher, J. Michael Lennon and Lawrence Schiller will also speak at the memorial. In addition, several visual presentations, produced by Michael Chaiken and Lawrence Schiller, will be shown, and there will also be musical presentations by singers Sasha Lazard and Norris Church Mailer, and trombonist, Peter McEachern.
Tickets for the general public are free, and can only be picked up at the Carnegie Hall box office beginning at 11 AM on the day of the tribute. Carnegie Hall seats 2800.
The Memorial
Some 1,200 people came to Carnegie Hall on April 9, 2008, for “The Time of His Time,” sponsored by Random House and produced by Norris Church Mailer, Lawrence Schiller, Carol Schneider, and J. Michael Lennon. Twenty-five family members and friends spoke. Random House afterward posted some of the tributes online, and the statements filled the 2008 double issue of The Mailer Review, which the Society published that fall, half of it given over to memorial material.
In Works and Days
- “The Time of His Time” — the statements of the 25 speakers, collected in The Mailer Review’s 2008 double issue.
- Joan Didion — American novelist and essayist; her front-page New York Times Book Review notice called The Executioner’s Song ‘an absolutely astonishing book,’ a judgment that helped…
- Norris Church Mailer — Painter, model, and writer; Mailer’s sixth and last wife.
- J. Michael Lennon — Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer, archivist, and close friend; Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University and Chair of the Editorial Board of The Mailer…
- Lawrence Schiller — American photographer, producer, and director; Mailer’s most important collaborator, beginning when the two met in November 1972.
- Michael Chaiken — Film curator and editor; interviewed Mailer about his films (including at Mailer’s last public appearance, July 2007) and later edited collections of Mailer’s film…