Tough Guys Don't Dance

A writer finds blood on his car seat and a couple of bodiless heads in his drug stash hide-away in the scrub forest of far Cape Cod. He's not sure who did it. He includes himself as a suspect. The book wandered but it was an interesting look at Provincetown in the late 1970's. rough and tumble with drugs and hoods and bad cops.
Mailer's writing is heavy and he tends to go on well written and metaphorical laden tangents that make his writing interesting. I will read another.

Norman Mailer was quite a gifted writer. I say that having actually only read in full one of his books, this one. I have read excerpts of several of his other books and writings, and having also read in its entirety his recently published collected letters. The man had talent with the written word. He also had imagination, being able to craft a complex story and tell it from the perspective of a narrator who is fully immersed in that story.

The problem, the singular problem with this book, is it's completely amoral position in regard to all of action of the story, action which has a decidedly moral aspect to it. The story is full of sex and violence yet not a one of the characters, form the narrator on down, ever seem to have a second show more thought about it. It happened. They did it. And then they proceed to whatever happens next.

This book was written 31 years ago, so it is unlikely that a review written at this late date will carry any weight. In a sense this book is totally post-modern in its outlook on life. There is no sense of right or wrong, of good or bad, according to any standards outside those of the character at the moment. I usually pass along books I have read to a person or place where they may find another reading. Not this one. My copy has been removed from circulation, so to speak. Save yourself from wasting your time. If you want to read Mailer then pick something else. Myself, I haven't given up. I'm going to try to find a copy of the Executioner's Song. show less

Tim Madden awakens from a night of drunken excess, still groggy and unable to recall anything of last night.
As the hangover clears he finds his car's passenger seat sticky with blood, a new tattoo with an old flame's name and the discovery of not one but two severed heads in the nearby woods, next to his secret marijuana stash.
Was he responsible for the murder of two women, or was the crooked police chief setting him up? Madden, a failed writer, has the story of a life time to write if he can sleuth his way through it and live. A couple of ex-cons and a pissed off homosexual, his own former cell-mate, all want him dead.
In Tough Guys Don't Dance, Mailer gives us many colorful characters, in his usual descriptive style, but don't be show more fooled. Through all the hard-nosed Irish and Portuguese on the streets of Cape Cod this book is worht the read for the flowing narrative language alone, and besides Madden is a tough guy, so why not give him the last dance. show less

As a person I disliked Norman Mailer - but I quite liked this book.

Tim Madden awakens from a night of drunken excess, still groggy and unable to recall anything of last night.
As the hangover clears he finds his car's passenger seat sticky with blood, a new tattoo with an old flame's name and the discovery of not one but two severed heads in the nearby woods, next to his secret marijuana stash.
Was he responsible for the murder of two women, or was the crooked police chief setting him up? Madden, a failed writer, has the story of a life time to write if he can sleuth his way through it and live. A couple of ex-cons and a pissed off homosexual, his own former cell-mate, all want him dead.
In Tough Guys Don't Dance, Mailer gives us many colorful characters, in his usual descriptive style, but don't be show more fooled. Through all the hard-nosed Irish and Portuguese on the streets of Cape Cod this book is worht the read for the flowing narrative language alone, and besides Madden is a tough guy, so why not give him the last dance. show less

A murder mystery that had the potential to be well done but failed in the end. Set in Provincetown, RI where Tim Madden is in a bit of depression from his wife having left him recently. He begins his night in a bar where he begins talking with a couple only to discover that in the morning they are both missing. Unable to remember the previous nights happenings he discovers the seat of his car is covered in blood and his arm stings from a tattoo with the name of a previous lover. He begins to piece together events of the night but he is still in a fog as to what occurred. The plot becomes entangled with corrupt police, criminals, and past lovers, all of which have a role to play. The book began out very intense but by the end I thought show more this was too unbelievable and was sadly disappointed. Plus it is very sexually explicit with many details I don't care to read about (skipped over those parts) and were in no real relevance to the story except to say that certain characters were sex addicts. show less

Coming back for a 2nd read 25+ years later
Kind of all over the place, too many tangents