An American Dream by Norman Mailer

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An American Dream by Norman Mailer

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An American Dream by Norman Mailer

In this wild battering ram of a novel, which was originally published to vast controversy in 1965, Norman Mailer creates a character who might be a fictional precursor of the philosopher-killer he would later profile in The Executioner's Song. As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go.

Praise for An American Dream

"Perhaps the only serious New York novel since The Great Gatsby."-Joan Didion, National Review

"A devil's encyclopedia of our secret visions and desires . . . the expression of a devastatingly alive and original creative mind."-Life

"A work of fierce concentration . . . perfectly, and often brilliantly, realistic with a pattern of remarkable imaginative coherence and intensity."-Harper's

"At once violent, educated, and cool . . . This is our history as Hawthorne might have written it."-Commentary

Praise for Norman Mailer

" Norman Mailer loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation."-The New York Times

"A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent."-The New Yorker

"Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure."-The Washington Post

"A devastatingly alive and original creative mind."-Life

"Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance."-The New York Review of Books

"The largest mind and imagination in modern American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book."-Chicago Tribune

"Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream."-The Cincinnati Post

Norman Mailer (1923-2007) was one of the best and most important writers of the twentieth century, as well as one of America's most well-known and divisive literary characters. He wrote stage plays, screenplays, television miniseries, hundreds of articles, two books of poetry, and a collection of short tales in addition to being the best-selling author of a dozen novels and 20 works of nonfiction. He lived in Brooklyn, New York, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780812986136
ISBN 10 081298613X
Title An American Dream
Author Norman Mailer
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Random House USA Inc
Year published 2015-02-17
Number of pages 288
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.