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    An American Dream
    An American Dream
    An American Dream
    Audiobook9 hours

    An American Dream

    Written by Norman Mailer

    Narrated by Christopher Lane

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 23, 2016
    ISBN9781522636779
    An American Dream
    Author

    Norman Mailer

    Norman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1955, he was one of the co-founders of The Village Voice. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Naked and the Dead; The Armies of the Night, for which he won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Executioner's Song, for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize; Harlot's Ghost; Oswald's Tale; and The Gospel According to the Son. He lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with his wife, the novelist Norris Church Mailer.

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    Reviews for An American Dream

    3.5/5

    191 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      You think Gary Condit has problems? Stephen Rojack is a former congressman, contemporary of John F. Kennedy, popular TV talk show host... and he has just strangled his estranged wife to death.To cover his crime, he tosses her out of a tenth story window, then meets up with a gangster's moll/lounge singer named Cherry. If ever a character was written to be played by Charlize Theron, this is it. The police suddenly drop their suspicions of murder against Rojack because they have bigger fish to fry- namely some of Cherry's mobster friends. The novel takes a look at a day and a half in the life of Rojack, following his rendezvous with Cherry, Ruta (his wife's maid), and his eventual meeting with his wife's father, culminating with his own high rise theatrics.This book moves very fast. The reader loves to hate Rojack. The novel is from his point of view, so we see the inner workings of his alcohol soaked mind. Mailer's descriptions are lucid, dense, and brilliant. You feel like you are in 1963 New York City, running from the police, smelling the smells of the squad room, and making love to exotic women.What does not work here are the kind of mobsters that were threatening in 1963, but come off like characters in a bad straight to video Eddie Deezen comedy today. There is a subplot involving some of the characters' involvement in the CIA that is also dated, and Mailer's attempts at magical fantasies that Rojack takes us on in his mind are over the top and dull.Other reviews I have read have mentioned this is a good starter to a Mailerphyte, and I would agree. "An American Dream" is entertaining, but not a perfect tome.This novel features a lot of sex, violence, profanity, and more alcohol consumption than a frat during rush week, so the kiddies probably should not have this Dream.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A rollercoaster of language driven like a steam train through a tale of murder, betrayal and lust with an echo of Kerouac - its a masterpiece of descripiive language - utterly compelling. Mailer is now my new favourite author
    • 5/5
      If this is the dream, PLEASE don't let me see the nightmare!This is superbly written, with one of the best representations of sex that I have ever read. There is nothing that could offend the most prudish of readers and yet...The story is one of spiralling destruction. There is never a moment when one expects a happy ending but still, it is not a morbid book.Well worth a read but, I don't think it goes on my re-read list.
    • 3/5
      This is a Mailer that I read, but did not keep. The story is an extended fantasy on the lines of, "if I really let it all hang out, this is the kind of violence that I would wreak on my world." Kill the wife, and then lunge across the American Media for a summer, and then, why I'd just have the job of being famous for being famous. I don't like the hero, I don't think many of the people he disrespects deserve it, and, while I do dislike the wife, I'm thinkin' all he needed was a divorce and a bender.Norman Mailer after "The Naked and the Dead" had to keep on being an important writer, and this was his attempt to keep going. But what this book does do, and perhaps that is what it meant to do, was forecast the entire spectacle of the decline and fall of O.J. Simpson?
    • 3/5
      After doing a little research on Norman Mailer, I decided to read something of his. I happened to get this book for free from a friend, so it made sense to start with this one.Three things come to my mind after reading this book: violence, metaphorical language, and great writing. This book is entirely about violence, but Mailer uses beautiful language techniques (similes and metaphors) that help romanticize violence in a way that I've never experienced before. Also, Norman Mailer knew how to write! His prose is very deep, philosophical, and beautiful...even though he was a horror of a human being while living.I must say, this book did not let me down. I know I will read others by Mailer now...but I have to take a break after reading this bleak view of humanity.