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Norman Mailer

Tough Guys Don't Dance: A Novel Audio CD – CD, Dec 20 2016

by Norman Mailer (Author), MacLeod Andrews (Reader)

4.0 200 ratings

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Norman Mailer peers into the recesses and buried virtues of the modern American male in a brilliant crime novel that transcends genre. When Tim Madden, an unsuccessful writer living on Cape Cod, awakes with a gruesome hangover, a painful tattoo on his upper arm, and a severed female head in his marijuana stash, he has almost no memory of the night before. As he reconstructs the missing hours, Madden runs afoul of retired prizefighters, sex addicts, mediums, former cons, a world-weary ex-girlfriend, and his own father, old now but still a Herculean figure. Stunningly conceived and vividly composed, Tough Guys Don’t Dance represents Mailer at the peak of his powers.

Language

English
Publisher

Brilliance Audio
Publication date

Dec 20 2016
Dimensions

16.51 x 2.86 x 13.97 cm
ISBN-10

1522637389
ISBN-13

978-1522637387
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (Dec 20 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1522637389
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1522637387
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 240 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.51 x 2.86 x 13.97 cm

Customer Reviews:
4.0 200 ratings

About the author

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Norman Mailer

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Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor and political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948. His best-known work was widely considered to be The Executioner's Song, which was published in 1979, and for which he won one of his two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, his book Armies of the Night was awarded the National Book Award.

Along with Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, which uses the style and devices of literary fiction in fact-based journalism.

Mailer was also known for his essays, the most renowned of which was "The White Negro." He was a cultural commentator and critic, expressing his views through his novels, journalism, essays and frequent media appearances.

In 1955, Mailer and four others founded The Village Voice, an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper distributed in Greenwich Village.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Carl Van Vechten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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nick yole

A good book

Reviewed in Canada on April 5, 2022

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As expected,, a good book at a good price

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Richard Cunningham

Tough Guys Don't Dance

Reviewed in Canada on August 24, 2002

"Tough Guys Don't Dance" is a haunting, brooding tour de force. Mailer's observational skills and psychological depth are hard to match. Tim Madden is equal parts anti-hero and anti-protagonist. Fitting in with Mailer's niche as journalism as fiction( i.e. "Armies of the Night"), Madden is usually not wise or honorable, just more so than those he encounters.

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B. Morse

No wonder I waited so long

Reviewed in Canada on June 3, 2001

I have owned a copy of Tough Guys for several years. It has moved from bookshelf to bookshelf as I have moved, and yet it has remained unread. Now I know why.
I had to give the book, and therefore the author, 2 stars. One for the fact that the story starts with an entertaining and intriguing premise, the protagonist waking one morning after an alcohol binge, with blood on the front seat of his car, a new tattoo on his arm, one hell of a hangover, and no real recollection of the events of the prior evening. A decapitated head buried at a secret marijuana patch complicates matters, as Madden has a vague recollection of spending time with a woman the night before who bears a striking resemblance, as does his recently decamped wife. Tim Madden is at once an engaging character, with lots of potential...but the book loses steam once the plot thickens, with far too many suspects and characters for so thin a book, and one gets bogged down.
The other star is for vocabulary. Either Mailor has a wonderful economy for words, or a good thesaurus.
I have put down books that I liked more than this one and never finished them. The only saving grace here was that my copy of this book only has 229 pages, and was not much of a chore to get through. While I have heard raves about Norman Mailer for years, I cannot subscribe to that after this book.

Reviewed in Canada on April 29, 2004

I found myself glazing over the words just hoping to get to the end. I couldn't force myself to care about the story because I didn't care about the characters. The protagonist in this book isn't likable, so I found myself not caring about the outcome. Very disappointing.

Reviewed in Canada on June 24, 2000

it is just entertaining, the kind of book you might read while you are at the dentist office, just waiting. it is not a great book, but it may keep you thrilled if you give it a chance. i guess the author will not get any prizes for this kind of book, but he reaches certain kind of people who reads this kind of stuff. not recommended for people who are lookinf for something great and beleive me, life is too short to read bad books.
LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do

Reviewed in Canada on March 8, 2020

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Great story from a great author

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Karl Janssen

Over-the-top '80s noir

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2013

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Amidst the esteemed literary output of Norman Mailer, Tough Guys Don't Dance, published in 1984, sticks out like a sore thumb. Here the renowned author tries his hand at the genre of crime fiction, in effect saying, "I may have won two Pulitzers, but I can still write like a tough guy." The result is something akin to if Hemingway wrote porn. The narrator, Tim Madden, distraught over the recent departure of his wife, meets a couple of out-of-towners at a bar and gets loaded. He wakes up the next morning with a new tattoo, a car seat covered in blood, and no memory of what happened. As he tries to piece together the events of that night, he finds himself investigating a murder he himself may have committed.

The novel is set in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a tourist destination at the very tip of Cape Cod. The story takes place in the off-season, when P-town is reduced to a sort of ghost town populated by hardcore lifers and the spirits of the dead. Mailer does a great job of describing the quirky, disturbing characters that lurk in the creepy underbelly of any small town, but he takes it so far to extremes that he approaches surrealism. Every character in the book is hooked on hard drugs and booze, sex-addicted to the point of having a juvenile obsession with genitalia, and firmly convinced of the existence of spirits, ghosts, and other supernatural forces. And above all, every character in the book is capable of murder. If you're willing to suspend enough disbelief to exist in this world, then you're in for a pretty good ride.

While reading Tough Guys Don't Dance, one gets the feeling that Mailer dashed the book off in one fell swoop, with no self-editing. The prose is brisk and addictive. Once you start reading, it's difficult to stop. The rapid fire dialogue carries you along like a swift current, even though what you're reading may be totally ridiculous. The book is a noir thriller like Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane used to write, but updated for the 1980s. Where it fails is when Mailer forgets he's having fun and feels the need to remind us of his literary laurels with passages that are far too lofty to fit the book. Even the low-life druggies and thugs in the book occasionally lapse into the voice of a Harvard-educated poet. As a narrator, Madden is far too sensitive for this book. Mailer wants us to know he's a tough guy--an ex-boxer and bartender with a prison record--but can't help reminding us that he's also a writer. Thus, on his way to his marijuana patch, Tim regales us with an ode to fall colors. If Mailer wanted to write a dirty shocker of a crime novel, he should have immersed himself completely in that atmosphere and stopped shooting for another Pulitzer. There's a lot of graphic sex in the book, or at least graphic sex talk. Mailer seems to particularly enjoy ribald depictions of homosexuality, as if revelling in his own naughtiness, but thirty years after publication homosexuality isn't as taboo as it used to be, and 21st century readers are likely to find such passages more silly than shocking.

The actual mystery story is confusing as hell, and the resolution doesn't particularly satisfy. Memory loss is an old chestnut of the genre that can't help but feel like a cliché; likewise, the way that killers engage in lengthy confessions of their sins before killing, rather than just pull the trigger and get it over with. Without such confessions there would be no resolution, because Madden's a lousy detective. Nevertheless, there are some really suspenseful moments here and a cast of delightfully creepy characters that keep you interested enough to want to see what's around the next turn. Tough Guys Don't Dance isn't an exceptionally good book, but it is entertaining. It straddles the line between a disturbing cult classic and a bit of kitsch that's "so bad it's good." The less you take it seriously, the more you'll enjoy it.

8 people found this helpful

Edward E. Eller

Henry Miller marries Dashill Hammet

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2019

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At turns a serious monster of a mystery and a rough and ready exploration of sexual psychologies. No nuance. In your face. Superbly descriptive. Muscular.

Mr M

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2017

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Very well written.

P. C. Johnson

An Unexpected Pleasure.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2014

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This was the first time I'd read a Norman Mailer novel and the first time in many years that I have managed to complete an entire book within a day.

There is so much confident, energetic writing in Mailer's work that reading this story is probably akin to the exhilaration felt in the back seat of a low-flying fighter jet moving at supersonic speed as it traverses the twists and turns of a Welsh valley.

A great read, in other words, and few will fail to enjoy the humour that is subtly embroidered with great craft by the author while maintaining both the pace and credibility of the storyline.

I've since purchased another Mailer novel and although I've yet to start reading it, buying it at all on the basis of this story is evidence enough for me that I won't be disappointed by it.

Enjoy.

One person found this helpful

B J M

Runs out of steam

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2014

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Starts with some brilliant prose and is quite enthralling and intriguing for a while. Unfortunately, towards the end there is the sense Mailer runs out of steam and does not know how to finish the book. As a result it seems to tail off very suddenly and improbably with an end that does not match the power of the opening ( as with The Naked and the Dead) Made more enjoyable for me having been to Provincetown so I could visualise where he was talking about. Enjoyable.

One person found this helpful

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Tough Guys Don't Dance: A Novel Audio CD – CD, Dec 20 2016

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Norman Mailer

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Buy new: $45.86

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Tough Guys Don't Dance: A Novel Audio CD – CD, Dec 20 2016

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About the author

Norman Mailer

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

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