How Mailer ended up on his top floor

Norman Mailer, the wild man of American letters who has died aged 84, had his own version of the New York credo that the only thing better than sex is real estate. Wisely, when he was on wife number two, he invested the financial rewards of his early success in a lovely five-story townhouse overlooking New York harbour from Brooklyn Heights. It would be worth, say, $15m today.

But every time the six-times married Mailer subsequently divorced, he sold a floor as a flat to pay for it. By the time he married Norris Church, the surviving Mrs Mailer, all he had left was the top floor, still a stunning apartment with a balcony cantilevered over the water. This time, the marriage had to last, and it did for 27 years. Otherwise, Mailer would have been camping on the roof.

Meanwhile, none of the thoughts on Mailer's death offered by fellow literati over the weekend matched for sheer panache those of the quick-thinking Gore Vidal, spoken 30 years ago. Vidal, who had recently written that Mailer's violent streak put him in the same league as mass murderer Charles Manson, came face to face with Mailer backstage on a TV talk show. Mailer head-butted him. Said Vidal: "Words fail Norman Mailer yet again." ·