Yes, Mailer had an egotism of curious disproportions. With the possible exception of John F. Kennedy, there had not been a President of the United States nor even a candidate since the Second World War whom Mailer secretly considered more suitable than himself, and yet on the first day of a war which he thought might go on for twenty years, his real desire was to be back in New York for a party. Such men are either monumental fools or excruciatingly practical since it may be wise to go to every party you can if the war is to continue on for two decades.

~Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night

For the past month, I’ve been in Provincetown. As you all know, I am a gay icon, so I must make the annual pilgrimage to the happy resort town during these balmy months, when all the boys don their short shorts, like this stud pictured above, one Norman Mailer, in whose house I squatted and whose ghost molested me. In a good way. The best way! Here’s what I wrote during my tenure as a Norman Mailer Fellow:

Just kidding, Norman Mailer Center donors and board members! That’s just a little joke, un petit facétie, like a little joke Norman would make.

Like these guys he drew into his bookcase:

Funny! See that swastika in the background? Norman was not a Nazi, for the record. He was just following orders. Just kidding again! A world-class misogynist, yes, but no Nazi was he. He was writing a book about the Third Reich when he died, writing it at this very desk, which has been preserved as he left it.

What do you think he did with the flashlight in the upper right corner? Text your guess to “FreeLizGreenwood.” Standard data fees may apply.

Here’s the big guy’s house. I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have to say it out loud…

A brick house on the beach?! How gauche! Don’t worry about me, though, I made do. Did you know that Mr. Mailer’s is the only brick house in Provincetown? Or at least on Commercial Street? It was harrowing, but I survived. I endured the cruel Bantaan-style death march to the ocean:

According to his official biographer, Mailer would relax on his deck and “watch the gulls fly in fahmation because Nahman thought they were the reincahnated spirits of World Wah Two fightah pilots.” Mailer’s biographer is a Massachusetts native, perhaps from my hometown. What a psychedelic thing to think!

EXCLUSIVE: Here is Mailer with some of his celebrity friends.

If you knocked on the door of 627 Commercial Street, Norman would receive you. But only if you had read his books.

According to one of his friends, whenever Norman went to dinner at a restaurant in town, “he’d have a waitress sitting on each knee.” They must have been tiny waitresses.

When he was preparing for a public lecture, he would simply rip the pages out of the book he wished to read. Sometimes these were books he had inscribed to one of his six wives or nine children.

I took a nap in his bed one day when I was tired. I snuck upstairs to the “off limits” room. I wasn’t supposed to do that. But I liked it.

When he was reading his own work out loud, he would slam his fists on the table when he came to a line he liked. I often do the same thing myself.

The young master in sailor suit and cane. This dandy was born ready for Provincetown.