Norris Church Mailer: Windchill Summer

Fourth Estate $35

Review: Margie Thomson

It must be tough being the wife of a famous man, with everything you do seen in reference to him.

So let's get it over with quickly. Yes, Norris is the wife of Norman (has been for 25 years), and there will be people who read this book because of that, or because they realise that she is the wife whom Norman has been accused of beating.

It also probably means that she has to work harder to win her own legitimate recognition, so it's nice to be able to say that with this, her first novel, she has achieved a book worth reading in its own right.

What kind of book is it? It has strong elements of a thriller (a grisly, unsolved murder and a pervading sense that some of the key characters are not what they seem).

But also central to the story is the friendship between two young women, Baby and Cherry, who are on the cusp of independence and discovering what kind of life they want for themselves.

Through flashback chapters we also learn a lot about the murder victim, Carlene, a former classmate of Baby and Cherry's, whose sad history is made all the more so because we know that none of her dreams will be realised.

A strong third string to the story is the time in which it is set, the summer of 1969. The astronauts have just walked on the moon, Woodstock has just wowed a generation, Easy Rider is on at the movies and, even in the small Arkansas town in which this story unfolds, the drugs, music and taboo-breaking sexual behaviour for which the 60s became a byword are making their presence felt.

Several classmates of the two main characters have been to Vietnam. One was killed, another has come back changed. We think that the war is happening halfway around the world, but it's not, says one of the characters. It's digging its claws into the boys and they are bringing it home with them.

Great literature this ain't, but it is enjoyable enough, has lots of risk and tension, and keeps you guessing until close to the end.

The book's pleasure is slightly marred by occasional clumsy scene-setting and a rather silly and unnecessary seance (although I suppose it is there as a contrast to the fundamentalist Christian beliefs of some of the peripheral characters).

Mailer is nothing if not ambitious: she covers a lot of ground, and with great tenacity and imagination entwines her many themes and storylines - from the evil of the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War and the My Lai massacre, to white-trash trailer culture, sexual mores, religious hypocrisy, and the freedom and dangers of hippie culture - into a cohesive, satisfying shape.

It will be interesting to see what she does next; she has certainly mined a great store of ideas here.

* Margie Thomson is the Herald deputy books editor.