- For the song An American Dream by The Dirt Band (aka Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), see their page at Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
"An American Dream" is Norman Mailer's fourth novel, published in 1965. Mailer wrote it in serialized form for Esquire Magazine, consciously attempting to resurrect the methodology used by Charles Dickens and other earlier novelists. The book's protagonist, Stephen Rojack, is a former war-hero and congressman, a talk-show host, and is an embodiment of the American Dream. In an alcohol-fueled rage, Rojack murders his estranged wife, a high society woman, and descends into a lurid underworld of Manhattan jazz clubs, bars, and Mafia intrigue. The novel was written in serialized form for Esquire Magazine, with Mailer writing each chapter feverishly against monthly deadlines. The book is written in a poetic style heavy with metaphor that creates unique and hypnotizing narrative and dialogue. The book caused a sensation for its portrayal and treatment of women, and was singled out for especially harsh critique by Feminist critic Kate Millett in her groundbreaking study of the treatment of women in literature, Sexual Politics. Mailer responded to the criticisms of Millett and other feminists in his own polemic The Prisoner of Sex, where he avoids defending himself directly, instead speaking his own case through an impassioned and brilliant appreciation of two other writers who were also singled out by Millett, Henry Miller and D. H. Lawrence. The book version of the novel was edited by E. L. Doctorow.The reviews for "An American Dream" were mixed, and for years the conventional wisdom was that the fever-pitched novel was one of Mailer's lesser novels. The book has its strong defenders, though, and its reputation has risen over the decades.
