PROVINCETOWN, Mass. – Norman Mailer’s family and friends paid final respects to the literary lion last night as he lay in an open casket, dressed in his favorite style vest – a gift from actor Russell Crowe – and surrounded by photos from his youth.
“[It’s] a big hole in my life,” said Norris Church Mailer, his wife of 33 years, who attended with all nine of his kids and 10 of his grandchildren.
Townspeople were just starting to feel the loss.
“Macho – that’s the word they always used to describe him but he was gentle, he was charming,” said Michael Shay’s restaurant owner Shay Santos.
“Maybe he had his own demons at one point, but he came to terms with that.”
Deborah Forman, who interviewed Mailer several times for her newspaper, the Cape Cod View, also remembered his warmth.
“He was very gracious, very welcoming, and he was brilliant,” she said.
“You could talk to him about anything – the war in Iraq, at age 25 what it was like to write a blockbuster,” said Forman after viewing Mailer in a Provincetown funeral home.
Mailer’s death Saturday at age 84 ended a legendary career that produced more than 30 books, but was often overshadowed by his pugnacious personality.
Yesterday, John Buffalo Mailer, 29, announced plans to make a second movie of his father’s landmark first novel, the World War II-inspired “The Naked and the Dead.” The younger Mailer will write the script.
ecalabrese@nypost.com