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Bruce Shaffer _ruce_haffer — The reviews inside the book describe it as a "Bridget Jones for men". I think the comparison may be somewhat of a stretch, but I still enjoyed the book very much. The story is about a young single man looking for action/love in New York City. Some scenes are hilarious, some heartbreaking, but more than anything I finished the book wanting to find a boy as taken with me as the main character of the book is with his coworker, Julia.

Marc Rossmann marcrossmann — I like this book. It is funny and sarcastic. I think Ann Beattie's Chilly Scenes of winter copied a little from this.

Emanuel Marina _manuel_arina — maybe the story is true but then the father is mere mortal not immortal as anyone think they are in the book, but all is well for in the end one who seek the truth will find the truth. it is the plot for assesination for the pope and how they found the one responsible, its a good book actually many twist and turn but in the end good prevail. it can give u some things to think about what to believed and not believed, maybe some things to reflect.

Andrea Mancuso bakabakashii — Serial Reading and Writing I re-read this novel straight after “The Deer Park”, so I could compare two successive Mailer novels, even though ten years separated them. “An American Dream” is a much more tightly structured novel. It’s not as discursive as “The Deer Park”. Instead, it’s divided into eight set pieces, which reflect the fact that it was originally designed and published as eight monthly installments in “Esquire” magazine in January to August, 1964. It was Mailer’s attempt to replicate the works of writers like Dickens and Dostoyevsky (the latter of whose “The Brothers Karamazov” was published in serial installments). Mailer reworked the novel before publication, but it retains the immediacy of his prose. The characters, descriptions and action are much more skillfully drawn. Stylistically, it’s not as self-consciously literary. Constructed around a crime of passion, it has more in common with the fiction of Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. To this extent, it remains a powerful and enjoyable read that has stood the test of time. The Birth and Death of the Cool The problem, however, as with “The Deer Park”, is the subject matter. Yet again, it concerns sexuality and the relationship between the sexes. This time it’s located within a violent context. Mailer uses the crime and its aftermath to explore male sexuality and how women fit into it. If it was simply a crime novel, we might be able to tolerate some of the attitudes that are conveyed in the novel. It might be arguable that they are simply those of the perpetrator of the crime and should be understood in that context. However, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the first person narrator, Dr. Stephen Rojack, is a vehicle for Mailer to express his worldview. Yet again, he seems to be striving for a definition of the Zeitgeist. He wants to embody everything that is hip. He sees himself as a contrarian, a maverick, a dreamer, a seer, a revolutionary, the essence of cool. Even if he might have been persuasive or convincing at the time, now, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s pretty hard to prove your case. In the words of Elvis Costello, “Yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper”. Why'd Ya Do It ? As you would expect, the first chapter contains the set up of the novel. Any one sentence summary of the novel will reveal this aspect of the plot, so if you don’t want to know anything about the novel, please stop reading now, or forget what you are about to read. (view spoiler) Mailer made the stylistic decision to tell a murder story from the point of view of the perpetrator. Rojack kills his wife, Deborah, by throwing her off the balcony of their apartment on page 35. Thus, almost from the beginning, we know what happened and whodunit. When the novel was in galleys, the novelist E.L. (Ed) Doctorow moved to Mailer’s publisher and became his editor. He felt that the knowledge of the murder should have been withheld until later in the novel, so that there would be greater tension. However, by then, it was too late. If Mailer had changed it, it would have been a different novel, perhaps a better novel, perhaps a greater novel. However, as it stands, the novel focuses attention on two issues: why did Rojack do it, and did he get away with it? It’s this approach that, for better or worse, differentiates the novel from those of Chandler and Cain. It also, arguably, adopts a similar approach to Camus’ “The Stranger”. Mailer takes himself far more seriously than Chandler or Cain. So why’d he do it? There is Superstition Rojack is no mere hoodlum. He is a 45 year old half-Jew, half-Gentile, a Professor of Existential Psychology (the author of “The Psychology of the Hangman” and proponent of the thesis that “magic, dread and the perception of death are the roots of motivation”), the host of a TV show, a former Member of Congress (a potential Presidential rival to JFK, “Prince Jack”, the first of three Princes – one Catholic Establishment, one Mafia and the other Black - he will encounter over the course of the novel) and a war hero who singlehandedly killed four German soldiers on a full moon-lit night in Italy. Rojack is haunted by these murders, and continues to believe that the moon, in the guise of a female apparition, speaks to him at times of conflict or crisis. It represents his Id or Thanatos, a Death Instinct, which battles with his more rational Self, his Ego or his Life Instinct, Eros. Mailer uses rudiments of Freud as a coat hanger upon which to hang some pretty crazy threads. It’s never clear how much is inspired by psychoanalytical theory and how much by sheer superstition. Deborah is an English heiress. Sex with her is “a carnal transaction with a caged animal”. She is a witch, she believes in demons, she hunts with spirits. She is controlled by an evil power. Even Rojack comes to believe in spirits and demons. Their marriage fails after eight years: “Living with her was murderous; attempting to separate, suicide came into me…Instinct was telling me to die.” He looks over balconies and feels “the itch to jump”. Within minutes of killing Deborah, Rojack has sex with (view spoiler) their German maid, Ruta (someone he thinks of as a Nazi), before he even has a chance to deal with the police. Within 24 hours, he falls in love with a 27 year old nightclub singer called Cherry and gifts to her her very first orgasm, as you do. Still, he sees his love of Cherry as “deranged and doomed”. He craves the ability to “love her and be sensible as well”. But the moonlit voice in his head warns, “The sensible are never free.” The Black Prince Rojack soon learns that Cherry has just broken up a relationship with the famous black singer, Shago Martin, who discovers the new relationship and threatens Rojack with a knife. Rojack has to fight Shago for Cherry’s love. Shago is the epitome of cool, “a prince in his territory”, “the Big Beat in Show Biz”. It isn’t said explicitly, but perhaps Shago represents Rojack’s Instinct or the Id, as well as his irrational fear of black men, the Other. Rojack is wearing Shago’s robe during the fight, thus giving him the chance to win not only Cherry, but Shago’s mantle. If Rojack wins, he will defeat the feared Black Prince and effectively become the “White Negro” anticipated in Mailer’s essay of the same name published in “Advertisements for Myself”. Although Shago is described as a singer, the details suit the trumpeter Miles Davis. As it turns out, Cherry is based on Mailer’s fourth wife, Beverly, who had actually had an affair with Davis before meeting Mailer. A Dance Around the Parapet At the end of the day, Rojack must confront Deborah’s father, Kelly (initially perhaps somewhat of a Super Ego, although later we perceive him as just another uncontrollable male Id), both in relation to whether he killed Deborah and whether he will attend her funeral. Rojack learns much about the family history that created Deborah’s demons, but Kelly also challenges him to confront his own demons, by walking around the parapet of his apartment. By the end of the novel, Rojack seems to have dealt with all of his internal conflicts, even the pull of the moon, and might even have embraced the relative rationality of his own Ego. He is ready to start again. Are We Our Own Demons? The main problem with the novel for me is just how seriously to take these demons. Are they Rojack’s or Mailer’s? Are they typical of the community? Are they ours? Does each of us have some version of these demons, these irrational fears? At times (if not most or all of the time), the demons seem to be ridiculous and/or offensive. So many of them seem to be locked up with the private concerns and preoccupations of the Great Male Mailer Ego. You have to question his attempt to make his own demons seem representative of society’s in some personalized version of Freud’s psychoanalysis. I’ve never been a fan of the concept that we have demons anyway. It seems to elevate personal weakness to some supranatural force that we can’t grapple with, manage or control. It seems to suggest that our weakness is caused by something other than what is in us, and therefore to give us an excuse for the failure to confront it. Ultimately, it’s up to all of us to master ourselves and our weaknesses. Only when we achieve this, when we love ourselves, can we love others. Relatively early in the novel, Rojack/Mailer says: “The only true journey of knowledge is from the depth of one being to the heart of another…” Much occurs after this statement, but I cling to the hope that this might be his message, that when you crawl out of your own depths, what is waiting for you at the peak, is other people, love. Only then can the sensible be truly free. The Full Humanity of Women Ultimately, “An American Dream” is a very male dream, a male nightmare even, whether or not Rojack/Mailer believes he might have woken up to a new sunrise. However, what of the role of women? Mailer’s attitude to women in this novel forms the basis of Kate Millett’s attack on literary misogynism in “Sexual Politics”. He attempted to respond in a later book, “The Prisoner of Sex” (which I haven’t read yet). However, I find in Diana Trilling’s assessment of his response something that helps me to define my lingering ambivalence about the social ideas embodied in Mailer’s novel (even if I still rate it as exceptional writing): "Biology is all very well, Norman. All these women have biology and they might be happy to celebrate it with you. But they have, as well, a repressive, life diminishing culture to contend with. Your book ‘The Prisoner of Sex’ has your always-beautiful intention of life enhancement and also, in its own particular way, a splendid imagination of women: I suppose we could describe it as the imagination of women in love. It nonetheless fails in its imagination of the full humanity of women, and this is a charge which no one would be impelled to level against your imagination of men." SOUNDTRACK: Marianne Faithfull – “Why D'ya Do It?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mvAM... Marianne Faithfull – “Why D'ya Do It?” [Live at ''Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!'' in 1993] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCMS... Stevie Wonder – “Superstition” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDZFf... Stevie Wonder – “My Cherie Amour” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Gu-... ”My cherie amour, distant as the Milky Way” Miles Davis– “My Funny Valentine” [Live at Teatro dell'Arte, Milan, Italy on October 11, 1964] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEfy...