Wife of Norman Mailer for 25 years, Norris Church Mailer was born Barbara Jean Davis in 1949 in Atkins, Arkansas, the Pickle capital of the South. Coming from such a beginning, there is great credit due to her that she has accomplished so much in the intervening years: working as a fashion model for five years, becoming a portrait artist with nine one-woman shows, acting in day-time television soap operas, writing screenplays and staying with the iconoclastic Mailer for so long. Now she has penned her first novel, a very entertaining mystery-cum-rites-of-passage piece about two girls, Cherry and Baby, who work in a pickle plant in the small town of Sweet Valley in Arkansas. It is 1969, and most of their male friends are either going or coming from the Vietnam War. When the body of a friend is found in a local lake, tensions boil over, with both Cherry and Baby becoming deeply involved. And it is no surprise that the horrors of war have permeated to this sleepy small town in the American South. Although simplistic in much of its content, Windchill Summer carries one along in the enthusiasm of its intent. Don't be surprised if you behold its characters on the small or big screens in the near future.