A frustrated writer, after a wild drinking binge, awakens to a terrifying discovery. There is evidence suggesting that he might have committed murder. Just like the hero in "An American Dream", he is mentally unstable and has a tendency towards superstition. Many have drawn comparisons between this novel and the works of Chandler and Hammett. However, I didn't find the prose to be as concise and powerful as many reviewers claim.

The language in this novel is indeed extraordinary, but it is also marred by lengthy digressions, especially towards the beginning. These digressions are so extensive that I began to lose hope that anything significant would ever occur. Once the story finally gets going, though, it turns out to be a good one, with excellent dialogue. Mailer masterfully creates a grim and foreboding atmosphere in a struggling New England seacoast village.

Overall, while the novel has its strengths, it also has its flaws. The excessive digressions in the beginning can be a bit of a turn-off, but if you can persevere through them, you'll be rewarded with an engaging and well-written story.

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This is a truly strange book.

I find myself in a rather peculiar situation as I can't even determine whether I liked it or not.

On the one hand, it had such a captivating hold on me that I simply couldn't put it down. The story seemed to draw me in, making me eager to know what would happen next.

However, on the other hand, I was generally confused by it. The plot twists and turns were so unexpected that I often found myself scratching my head, trying to make sense of it all.

Maybe I'll have to have another go at reading it. Perhaps with a second reading, I'll be able to untangle the confusion and gain a better understanding of this strange and somewhat alluring book.

Meh! This is a B-movie script that stretches over 471 pages. Besides two or three citations and anecdotes that aren't the author's "duh", the book is just a bad criminal story and how the protagonist, Tim Madden, wants to show his father that he is a man too.

Citations and anecdotes: - Costello's dance story. - "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur." - St. Augustine - The last page showing the difference between comedy and tragedy by Martin Opitz.

Conclusion: No more Norman Mailer for me!

This book seems to lack depth and originality. The story is rather mundane, and the attempts to add some intellectual flavor with the citations and anecdotes feel forced. It fails to engage the reader on a deeper level and leaves one with a sense of disappointment. Maybe Norman Mailer has written better works in the past, but this one definitely doesn't do him justice. I would not recommend this book to anyone looking for a thrilling and thought-provoking read.

Well, this was a whopping 228 pages that felt like a complete waste of time.

I don't think I will ever pick up another book by Norman Mailer. This was my first encounter with his work, and it will most definitely be my last. I had to grit my teeth and endure page after page of what seemed like pure bullshit.

First of all, perhaps the writer was attempting to make you despise the main character by having him be incredibly racist and sexist towards anyone and everyone who wasn't a single white male. But even when the main character interacted with other townspeople, they were filled with hatred for blacks, Portuguese, all women except blondes, and gay men. (Of course, he had a soft spot for a peroxide-haired gay female, but brunettes were considered dirty and in need of a shower. These were his words, not mine.)

There were only a few shining moments of good writing in this book. The entire plot could have been executed ten times better if it had been condensed into a short story of under 100 pages and all the unnecessary commentary on race and gender had been cut out. It added absolutely nothing to the end product or the story itself.

I understand that the author was trying to push forward a story that combined elements of "Memento" (the movie) and "Fear and Loathing."

"We had gone for a drive to look for October foliage.....Coming around the turn, I saw a maple with orange-red plumage against a full blue sky, the leaves quivering and ready, tipped with their last red and later shadows of upcoming fall. Looking there I murmured, 'Oh, you sweet Bitch,'" as quoted from the pages of "Tough guys don't dance."

Overall, this book was a disappointment and I would not recommend it to anyone.

Mailer, due to his contractual obligation to pen a book, hastily produced his effort to emulate Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. However, he fails spectacularly in this endeavor. Miserably so. It is quintessential Mailer as its predominant themes revolve around violent sexuality and toxic masculinity.

His preposterous protagonist is a former bartender, a former drug runner, and currently (within the book's timeline) a drunk and failing writer. He awakens with a fresh tattoo, blood saturating the passenger seat of his car, and a woman, or at least we presume it was a woman, as her body is absent. But he has the head, and given his past experiences as a bartender, drug runner, and drunk, failing writer, he resolves to solve the mystery on his own.

Mailer essentially mailed this one in. At least it consists of fewer than 250 pages, so you won't waste more than a few days reading it. It's a lackluster attempt that fails to live up to the standards set by the greats he aimed to imitate.

This was truly interesting.

I have a hunch that it might be about smoking pot. However, to be honest, I'm not entirely certain.

There are some aspects that seem to point in that direction, but then again, there could be other interpretations.

Maybe it's just a topic that's been presented in a somewhat ambiguous way, leaving room for different understandings.

It makes me wonder if the person writing this intended for it to be about smoking pot or if it's something else entirely.

Either way, it's definitely got my attention and has me thinking about the possibilities.

Perhaps with more context or further exploration, I'll be able to determine more accurately what this is really about.

Until then, I'll just have to keep an open mind and see where this leads.

The novel has a very informal language that makes it enjoyable to read, even though it deals with sensitive topics and some of them are taboo. In my reading experience, I really liked how the author tries to be raw in the voices of his characters. It is noticeable that he emphasizes the tone. In my opinion, instead of seeking realism, the author hopes to make clear the inclinations of his characters at a small cost by exaggerating the way his characters speak.

The story is simple. The author does not try to innovate in terms of the plot. Instead, he seems to have taken a different path and delight us with how bizarre the situations can become and make this novel a kind of satirical script. While this point has been the argument of those who criticize the work, I find the same argument to support the work. Because if we assume that the author's intention is to make a parody of the genre, he has done an impeccable job.

A very interesting fictional story with a great title.

This story takes the reader on an exciting journey through a world of imagination. The title immediately grabs the attention and makes you want to know more.

The characters in the story are well-developed and engaging. You can't help but root for them as they face various challenges and obstacles.

The plot is full of twists and turns, keeping you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. There are moments of excitement, moments of mystery, and moments of heartwarming emotion.

Overall, this is a fictional story that is not to be missed. It has everything you could want in a good read - a great title, interesting characters, and a captivating plot. Whether you're a fan of fiction or just looking for a good story to pass the time, this one is sure to satisfy.

This was an absolutely terrible book.

Apparently, it was written in just two months, and it truly feels that way. For a brief period, I was somewhat thrilled by it, in a sort of half-camp manner. I was carried along by the hilariously masculine voice of the narrator, which was everything it was cracked up to be.

It was disgusting, over-the-top, and grotesque - but that was precisely what made it good. And the cracked philosophy that seeped in made it even more enjoyable.

Hearing someone have what appeared to be a serious conversation about the psychic repercussions of haunted marijuana was quite entertaining. Not to mention all the other wild elements like wife-swapping, seances, cuckolding, and decapitation.

On pure salaciousness, it managed to carry me along for a while. However, where it lost its way was when it attempted to make sense.

The best detective novels whose style it was emulating were aware of the fact that no one really cares what actually happened.

It was just about the crazy scene of the rigged fight, or the hilltop shootout, or the police interrogation. How we got there or where we were going was unimportant - it should have relied on pure style.

Unfortunately, basically the last 1/3 of "Tough Guys Don't Dance" felt like it was trying to untangle all the plot threads it had introduced - as much for itself as for us.

When really, we would have been more content to simply throw a couple more unexplained severed heads into the mix and call it a day.

This thrilling murder mystery was published in 1984. Mailer wrote it in just two months to fulfill a contractual obligation with his publisher. It stands apart from his other works but still retains the signature elements of Mailer's writing.

The story is set in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Tim Madden, a fortyish former bartender who served three years in jail for drug running, is now struggling to make a living as a writer. His wife, Patty Lareine, has run off with a black man, leaving him alone. One night, while drinking heavily at the Widow's Walk Bar, he meets a couple from California. The rest of the night is a blur until he wakes up the next morning with a severe hangover, a new tattoo on his arm with a woman's name he doesn't know, and discovers that the passenger seat of his Porsche is drenched in blood. After receiving a tip, he checks his marijuana patch in Truro and finds the head of a blonde woman in the same spot where he hides his stash of drugs. He carries the head back to his car and is then attacked by two villains, one with a tire iron and the other with a knife. He manages to survive the assault and drives home.

All the evidence seems to point to him as the killer, so he decides to solve the murder himself. This journey takes him in many directions and leads him to encounter corrupt cops, dim-witted mobsters, a shady medium, and washed-up boxers as he tries to figure out exactly what happened. Who was the woman whose head was in his drug stash? Was he so drunk and drugged that he murdered her? If he didn't commit the murder, then who did and how did her head end up in his drug patch?

Several dead bodies turn up in this bloody mystery, and a wide cast of characters emerge, some from Tim's past. As this convoluted mystery meanders, twists, and winds down several divergent paths, Mailer's attention remains on the characters rather than the plot. He ends each chapter with a big event to urge the reader on. The book includes all the elements of a crime thriller, such as sex, drugs, greed, corruption, and violence.

Some consider this a hard-boiled, noirish novel, similar to the works of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. However, Mailer has made an effort to give it the air of a literary novel by including descriptions of Provincetown's beautiful scenery and a long conversation with a macho Irish father. This passage of dialogue evokes genuine feeling and reveals the meaning behind the title of the book. But Mailer also includes chapters filled with his usual preoccupations, such as masculinity and violence, which predominate in the final chapters and contain both heterosexual degeneracy and homophobic language. Much of it is about men trying to prove their maleness despite characteristics that may be seen as effeminate.

The positive aspects of the book include Tim's relationship with his father, the descriptions of Provincetown, and some humorous moments. Although the book raises issues that are supposedly part of Madden's consciousness, they are actually just the well-known and documented obsessions of Norman Mailer, which are evident in many of his works.

Mailer's attempt at writing a hardboiled detective story received mixed reviews from critics. While it may not be recognized among his better work, it is still an interesting read.

Okay, at this point I just flat-out love Norman Mailer. His writing style is truly captivating. His voice is so wild, burning, and furious, filled with madness, spiritual, and intellectual yearning. It's as if he is on a quest to explore the deepest recesses of the human psyche.

However, his endings are really letting me down. Somehow, his stories always seem to devolve into a bunch of people sitting around and baldly explaining the story to each other in the least interesting way conceivable. He makes a big show of being an anti-rationalist, but when it comes to storytelling, he's a total realist. All the lip service he pays to ghosts, god, and the beyond goes out the window in favor of neatly tying things up like a b-grade detective story from around 1952.

HERE'S HOW I KILLED THESE PEOPLE AND WHY; NOW WASN'T THAT ALL INCREDIBLY BORING? At this point, I'm really starting to suspect that Ancient Evenings has gotta be the one! Or maybe The Gospel According to the Son - somewhere he's gotta be able to break through "reality" enough to allow the storyworld to form according to his actual beliefs. Reading these books is like watching someone with wings NOT JUMP OFF A CLIFF over and over and over again. JUST JUMP OFF THE GODDAMN CLIFF, NORMAN MAILER!!! I WANNA SEE YOU FLY!!!!!

Either that, or I should just stick to his journalism. I love when he rants about plastic. It's always so passionate and thought-provoking. Maybe that's where his true genius lies.

I had never read anything by Norman Mailer before. And now I find that I really like his works.

My daughter recommended that I read "The Executioner's Song". Although I have to wait for a while to read it, I'm sure I will definitely read it.

Mailer is a renowned American writer with a unique writing style. His works often explore profound themes and human nature.

I'm looking forward to delving into "The Executioner's Song" and experiencing the story and the emotions it conveys.

I believe that through reading his works, I can gain a deeper understanding of different aspects of life and expand my literary horizons.

Overall, I'm excited about this new discovery and can't wait to explore more of Mailer's literary treasures.