Norman Mailer’s last assistant, Dwayne Raymond, wrote a lovely memoir called Mornings with Mailer that chronicles his (i.e. Raymond’s) last couple years with the bigtime novelist.

I pulled the book down during a quiet hour at work yesterday and I paced the office and read thirty pages from the middle. It was a quick-moving section about Mailer’s final novel. Detailed his whole creative process.

Raymond describes how, when Mailer finished the manuscript, he just sent it to his publisher and waited for feedback.

Like just…just sent it. Wrote a novel and jusst sent it in.

“Here it is. My novel.”

And it got published.

Just…just, “here it is. My novel.”