Making Borscht for Mailer

In the midst of winter 2004, Norman Mailer decided he wanted borscht. Not any borscht, but a borscht he remembered from Minsk, where he had spent time researching Oswalds Tale, his 1995 biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. When borscht is made perfectly, there is nothing that compares, he pronounced, grabbing a yellow pad and scribbling directions on how to achieve this soupy nirvana. It took three weeks for Dwayne Raymond to perfect the hallowed borscht -- the trick was the marrow of roasted bones and a teaspoon of hot Russian mustard. Appetite -- and memory -- satisfied, Mailer arose the following day and wrote the first draft of a section of his novel The Castle in the Forest describing the killing of Russian peasants during the coronation of Czar Nicholas II. Norman had a quality that made those near him want to please him, writes Raymond in his memoir Mornings With Mailer. Although I noticed its effect on others immediately, I didnt fully realize it myself until I spent three weeks perfecting borscht. Its a chilly November evening in Provincetown, and Raymond has just re-created another of Mailers favorite dishes for my visit to his apartment, within view of the cemetery where Mailer is buried. Sit anywhere you like, he says, gesturing to an arrangement of furniture in the corner of his large living room. You can take Normans old chair, if you like. The chair, salvaged from Mailers longtime home on Commercial Street -- now a writers colony -- is an Eames-style lounge chair, upholstered in red leather, with a pleasing tilt when you ease back in it. Good gracious, I overcooked the scallops, Raymond says, tut-tutting as he cuts into the dish that has just emerged from the oven. Its a kind of Thai recipe, but not really, he continues, recalling the genesis of tonights meal -- a combo of scallops and shrimp on a bed of teriyaki-flavored rice and shiitake mushrooms -- as an ad hoc lunch item hed made for Mailer and E.L. Doctorow, the author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. I sold the idea to Norman because I threw teriyaki sauce into the mix, he chuckles. He loved it. Doctorow had seconds. The story of how an aspiring novelist drifting from one job to another became, in his words, Man Friday to the great American writer is the subject of Mornings With Mailer. A frank and tender account of the five years Raymond spent assisting Mailer as he wrote his last four books, its the story of an unlikely relationship between two men -- one gay, the other a poster boy for rugged heterosexuality -- who bond through a love of food and writing. Although Mailer lived much of his life in the spotlight, Raymond leaves the scandals and rivalries, the serial marriages and romantic entanglements, the evaluation of Mailers sprawling work to the biographers and critics. His scope is smaller but more enlightening, rooted in the accumulation of everyday detail, from which a meticulous, deeply sympathetic portrait of Mailer emerges. He was world famous for being married six times, for being a misogynist, which was wrong, says Raymond. He was anything but a misogynist -- he was not homophobic. He was none of those labels, but the thing that people dont realize about him is that he loved his wife, he loved his family, and he was a great father. I tried to bring that out. He was a terribly complex character who was so fucking simple at the core. It was a brief encounter in a small Provincetown restaurant where Raymond was waiting tables that set the stage for his employment three years later, when the two met in a local supermarket. Waving him over, Mailer asked the younger man if he could drop by his house for a chat, shooting a look into Raymonds shopping basket as he did so. Only later would Raymond realize that Mailers sly inventory of his purchases was part of the evaluation. Mailer wanted a research assistant, but he also wanted a cook. Raymond sauntered through stints as a leather-goods seller, an editor at a gay Boston newspaper, a flight attendant, and a producer for MTVs The Real World: Boston before he ended up waiting tables in Provincetown. Working with Mailer would change his life at a time when he needed it most. The hours Id spent working as a waiter through the years had driven me to nearly detest every moment, he writes. I had become consumed by a growing dislike of strangers and an even deeper revulsion at taking their food orders. Its fair to say that each needed the other. For Mailer, Raymond was a researcher, assistant, chef, and, ultimately, a caregiver. For Raymond, who was 7 when his cancer-stricken father committed suicide, Mailer became a life coach. He taught me to be a better man by example, he says. He taught me those necessary things that boys learn from their father -- if their father is good -- about how to act, how to behave, the ethics of work, which gets lost in the turmoil of so many of our lives. As their relationship developed, Mailers quirks came quickly into view, from his contempt for television (he blamed it for interrupting the maturity of concentration) to his deep appreciation for a well-designed lavatory (he spoke with utmost authority when he encountered one not up to standard). But it is the daily ritual of mealtimes that occupy the best parts of Mornings With Mailer. Not all of the recipes were as successful as the scallops. Another teriyaki dish, at Mailers suggestion, involved frying breakfast steaks in teriyaki, butter, and raspberry jam. Its not terrible, but its not what I hoped, was Mailers verdict. As with everything else in life, the writers appetite for food could be as eccentric as it was prodigious. Only in his last year did his curiosity diminish -- to the point where he was subsisting largely on oysters and Hersheys bars. In a chapter that beautifully illustrates the odd-couple dynamic between the writer and the town he adopted, Raymond describes Mailer, weakened by heart surgery but still determinedly independent, driving to Wellfleet for a lunch of oysters. As the hours pass, concern for Mailers safety mounts. Local friends are asked to look out for his car, a silver Toyota. Only much later does Mailer materialize, having returned to Provincetown for another round of drinks at the Old Colony Tap, before abandoning his car for a taxi home. In a coincidence that would seem contrived in fiction, his fellow passenger was Raymonds former partner Scott -- a drag queen dressed as Cher on his way to a weekly bingo game. He makes a good showgirl, Norman told Raymond the following day. Is there anything else you havent told me? Although Mailer loved to be the center of attention, he was keenly aware of the troubles and anxieties of those around him. Raymond recalls the day Mailer counseled him on his relationship with Thomas, a carpenter whod battled alcohol and depression. Men like you and I cant know the conflict living within Thomas, Mailer had said. Two years later, Thomas revealed that he was transgender. I think he saw things in people that other people didnt see, right off the bat, says Raymond. I think he got to the humanity in people. The only reason I put the story of Thomas and his transgenderism in the book was because Norman was the one who saw it -- two years before it ever came to light. He saw that stuff, he saw that duality in Thomas. Even as Mailers health began to fail, in 2006, there was never a possibility that he would be forced into a home or that he would leave Provincetown until he absolutely had to (in his final months he moved, reluctantly, to Brooklyn). He loved this town, says Raymond. When he walked down the street, he was Norman, and hed just wave his cane at people and go, Hey, how are you? because it was his town, and he loved the mishmash. He loved that there were fisherman here, there were gay guys here, straight people. He loved all of it. Before I leave Provincetown the following morning, Raymond gives me a brief tour of Commercial Street, passing by Mailers famous red-brick house, and ending at the cemetery. The air has the salty tang of the sea, and clouds cluster around the Pilgrim Monument. The wind tugs at us as we walk over to the white marble headstone, just beyond a scrim of spruce trees, on which Mailers name is etched above a quote from his second novel, The Deer Park: THERE IS THAT LAW OF LIFE, SO CRUEL AND SO JUST, THAT ONE MUST GROW OR ELSE PAY MORE FOR REMAINING THE SAME. Raymond recalls the months after Mailers death: I didnt have anywhere to go for a while -- it bothered the hell out of me. But all in all, this whole situation was happy. Thats the only word I can ascribe to that whole period, those five years I learned from him, and I was able to make his life, I hope, a little easier. And he was happy when he died. He couldnt talk, he couldnt eat. He could laugh, though. Norman Mailer's Shrimp and Scallops with Rice Saut finely chopped shitakes in a heavy frying pan in butter and 1 TBS olive oil for five minutes. Add Teriyaki Base & Glaze -- 1/4 bottle, 1/2 cup chicken stock, and 1/2 TSP Asia chili oil. Simmer. Add more butter and 1 TBS oyster sauce, a dash of the Thai Season and chopped scallion and fine chopped celery. Lastly, stir in cream -- 1/4 cup or so -- (judge) and 1/4 cup fish stock. Reduce. Take off heat and let cool down a bit. Later, pour over large fresh sea scallops and large shrimp in baking dish. This can rest in the fridge awhile before baking at 400 degrees for six to seven minutes. Serve with rice cooked in half chicken stock and half water, salt and pepper and a quarter stick of butter. Mornings With Mailer is available now from Harper Perennial.Send a letter to the editor about this article.