Francis Irby "Fig" Gwaltney
Mailer's Army friend and a lifelong correspondent — a novelist from Arkansas whom Mailer met during his Pacific service in 1945. In 1975 Gwaltney introduced Mailer to Barbara Norris ("Norris Church"), who became Mailer's sixth wife.
Francis Irby “Fig” Gwaltney met Mailer overseas during his Pacific service in 1945 and remained a close friend and correspondent for decades. On the annual Mexico trips that began in 1952 Mailer would stop to see him in Arkansas, and the two appeared together in the 1955 article-interview “Two Ex-GI’s Write Revenge on Army” (55.3). In 1975 Gwaltney introduced Mailer to Barbara Norris — later Norris Church Mailer, his sixth wife.