In the spring of 1977, when I worked at the Trenton Times, a group of us would sometimes knock off work early and go play basketball in the driveway of Michael Norman, who had left the paper a few months earlier but was still available for pick-up games and conversation. Michael would go on to write a book about his experiences as a Marine in Vietnam (These Good Men), cover stories for the New York Times Magazine, and eventually a column for the Times that was sprinkled with quotations from the Greeks. He and his wife Beth would also raise two fine sons.
I stopped to see them just before our move to Fort Lauderdale, and – unlike all my other friends – Michael told me that he liked Florida. I had been feeling uncertain about our move, and Michael’s endorsement made me feel a lot better about it. A few years later, shortly after my first book came out, he and Beth came to visit and Michael, standing in our kitchen, looked me in the eye and told me I had written a very fine book. Then he gave me a congratulatory handshake.
Over the weekend I heard from Beth that Michael had died. The cause was lung cancer, quite possibly the result of exposure to Agent Orange. I thought back to those golden afternoons in Lawrenceville, and Michael’s thoughtfulness. Writers can be such jealous fools, stingy with praise, and now a good one who wasn’t has left us.
