num_pages: 288
description: 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.
language: English
title: An American Dream
titlecomplete: An American Dream
characters: Stephen Rojack
genres: Classics, Fiction, The United States Of America, Novels, American Fiction, 20th Century, Literature, Literary Fiction, American, Crime
ratings_count: 3748
places: New York City, New York
publisher: Vintage