American Dream

"Not for a moment can the novel be taken seriously as a portrayal of life in America--or anywhere else. This is the make-believe world of Ian Fleming and Mickey Spillane. However, Mailer has a streak of pretentiousness that keeps the book from being the good dirty fun that Fleming's books, if not Spillane's, often are. I should like to believe that the novel is a hoax, and perhaps to some extent it is....If one rejects the theory that the novel is a hoax, one faces a distressing alternative. If one believes that Mailer intended An American Dream to be taken seriously, one has to conclude that he has gone to pieces as a writer....The absurdity of the book is not limited to the plot....The writing is the sloppiest Mailer has ever done....[And American Dream] seems to me to represent such a failure of critical judgment that I cannot lightly dismiss it. It makes me wonder how much longer Mailer will hold 'his place in the forefront of modern writer.'"Mailer, Norman is the author of 'American Dream', published 1999 under ISBN 9780375700705 and ISBN 0375700706.