Review: "An American Dream" by Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer is one of the towering figures of 20^th century American literature and one of the most divisive, and it is because books like An American Dream. This book is less a novel and more like an assault on sacred values as well as the reader’s sensibilities. It is at times an angry book, a philosophical book and a downright angry book, but it always seems to be a plodding, meandering mess with a rather terrible protagonist both morally and on the page. I looked up some info on this book, and when it came out in the 1960’s, it really pissed women off, and seeing as how the two women central to the book’s narrative are portrayed, it is easy to see why. I will always give credit to Mailer for giving the world something like The Executioner’s Song, easily one of the most important and best book’s ever written, but book’s like this, The Fight and Harlot’s Ghost, I am not very impressed. It begins with Stephen Rojack, a moderately successful former politician turned TV personality killing his wife and making it look like a suicide. What happens after that is a rather dull trip down into the underworld, where Stephen sexually objectifies a woman named Cherry who might have connections to the mob and alienates the high society he was seemingly born into. Stephen is not a nice guy and dare I say, not a very interesting one, at least in the year 2017. He drinks too much and has extramarital affairs, but what protagonist doesn’t during the literary timeframe this came out? I dig a few scenes, like Stephen’s interrogation from cops just as sleazy as he is and a sex scene involving foot worship, but as a whole, I found this book an unpleasant drag, and from now on, I won’t be so quick to pick up a Mailer book as I was in the past.

Rating: 3/5