Barbara Mailer Wasserman
Norman Mailer's only sibling, born Barbara Jane Mailer on 6 April 1927 in Long Branch, New Jersey; died 18 January 2026. Barbara is Mailer's lifelong closest relative; beginning in late 1958 she works intermittently as his secretary for some years. Her son Peter is born on 11 April 1955. She is the dedicatee of Pieces and Pontifications (1982) and the author of the memoir Love of My Life (2021).
Barbara Mailer Wasserman (born Barbara Jane Mailer) is Norman Mailer’s younger sister by four years — and his only sibling. Born on 6 April 1927 in Long Branch, New Jersey, Barbara grows up alongside Norman first in Long Branch and then, from fall 1928, in Brooklyn — initially in Flatbush on Cortelyou Road, and from January 1932 at 555 Crown Street in Crown Heights.
Family portraits with Barbara survive from 1928, 1931, 1932, 1935, 1936, and 1939 — chronicling the siblings from infancy and early childhood to Norman’s arrival at Harvard.
A portrait from about 1944 shows Barbara in her late teens, the year Norman married Bea Silverman and shipped out to the Pacific.
Lennon’s 1955 Days entry records the birth of Barbara’s son Peter on 11 April 1955. Lennon’s 1958 entry: “Late in the year Mailer’s sister Barbara begins doing secretarial work for him, which she will continue intermittently for a few years.”
A 1960 photograph catches the siblings as adults — the period during which Barbara was working intermittently as Norman’s secretary (see 1960).
Pieces and Pontifications (82.16) is dedicated “For my sister, Barbara.” J. Michael Lennon dedicates his authorized biography, Norman Mailer: A Double Life (2013), in part to her.
As Barbara Mailer Wasserman she wrote often about her brother for The Mailer Review, including the 2017 family keynote “Norman Mailer in Long Branch” (see 2017). In 2021, at ninety-four, she published her first book — the memoir Love of My Life, which recalls their Depression-era Brooklyn childhood and her own life from postwar Paris to 1950s Greenwich Village. In February 2022 Erika Funke interviewed her about her brother on WVIA’s ArtScene.
Barbara Mailer Wasserman died on 18 January 2026, at ninety-eight (Hinton, “Barbara Mailer Wasserman”, Norman Mailer Society, 19 Jan. 2026).
Related pages
- 1927 | 1928 | 1931 | 1932 | 1935 | 1936 | 1939
- Isaac Barnett "Barney" Mailer | Fanny "Fan" Schneider Mailer
- Long Branch, New Jersey
- Pieces and Pontifications (82.16) | 1982
- Norman Mailer: A Double Life | 2017
- Love of My Life | 2021
- ArtScene interview (2022) | 2022