Recently Norris Church Mailer released her book: A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir. It is about her marriage to Norman Mailer who was "fragrantly unfaithful" to his wife. Her book describes how they met and expresses her feelings for a man who would ultimately break her heart. In my memoir of my parents: Love Always, Hobby and Jessie, I describe how they met and why their marriage was difficult. Like Norman Mailer, Hobby was charismatic and charming. Like Norris, Jessie was loyal and shared the same traditional Southern girl background. Norman never stopped being crazy and Norris. In some ways, Hobby was like that, too. He was crazy for Jessie, but he still was who he was.
There was no doubt in their early marriage years that Hobby and Jessie shared an intense physical chemistry. But what made it change? Was Hobby's unfaithfulness the big contributor to their unhappiness? Was Jessie trying to break out of the traditional role and find herself? And, then, what would she find? Unlike Norris Mailer, Jessie was not sexually liberated. She was old-fashioned, and in conflict as she tried to understand her feelings of indepedence.

With Hobby and Jessie, as well as couples like Norris and Norman Mailer, we can't ask the question: What makes a good marriage tick? We have to ask: Can this marriage ever tick good.
How can we live our lives in committed relationships with little or no regrets?