Tough Guys Don't Dance

Rating:
Summary: Great Fun !
Review: "Tough Guys Don't Dance" is a good old fashioned thriller set in a decaying seaside New England town inhabited by a motley assortment of wealthy elitists, drug dealers, fishermen, psychopaths, and brooding alcoholic tough guys like the hero Tim Madden. Someone has it in for Tim--a struggling novelist and former criminal. After a night of heavy drinking and quazi-amnesia, severed heads are turning up on his property and the passenger seat of his car is drenched in blood. Can he find the killer (s) before he gets blamed for the killings? Mailer builds up the suspense like a true master of mystery (even though mystery is not his primary field). There is also some fine writing in this book. It should be read aloud like poetry. More than a decade before "Pulp Fiction" Mailer knew how to mix a thrilling crime drama with interesting conversations and musings about life, love, and amature philosophy. As Tim tries to solve the mystery, he broods about ethnic and cultural differences {he is a mixture of Irish and Jewish and the town is mostly Portugese}, history {he is obsessed with the Pilgrims and other aspects of local history like "hell town" a 19th century vice district}, wives, parents and family life, cops, prison, alcohol, drugs, war and on and on. In the hands of a bad {or even average} writer, this would just get anaoying, but Mailer carries it off well.

Rating:
Summary: Tough Guys Don't Dance
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: A real drag
Review: "Tough Guys Don't Dance" is a good old fashioned thriller set in a decaying seaside New England town inhabited by a motley assortment of wealthy elitists, drug dealers, fishermen, psychopaths, and brooding alcoholic tough guys like the hero Tim Madden. Someone has it in for Tim--a struggling novelist and former criminal. After a night of heavy drinking and quazi-amnesia, severed heads are turning up on his property and the passenger seat of his car is drenched in blood. Can he find the killer (s) before he gets blamed for the killings? Mailer builds up the suspense like a true master of mystery (even though mystery is not his primary field). There is also some fine writing in this book. It should be read aloud like poetry. More than a decade before "Pulp Fiction" Mailer knew how to mix a thrilling crime drama with interesting conversations and musings about life, love, and amature philosophy. As Tim tries to solve the mystery, he broods about ethnic and cultural differences {he is a mixture of Irish and Jewish and the town is mostly Portugese}, history {he is obsessed with the Pilgrims and other aspects of local history like "hell town" a 19th century vice district}, wives, parents and family life, cops, prison, alcohol, drugs, war and on and on. In the hands of a bad {or even average} writer, this would just get annoying, but Mailer carries it off well.

Rating:
Summary: Misogynistic Drivel
Review: First of all, it is impossible to deny that this book is incredibly misogynistic. Look at the premise: A guy finds a severed woman's head in his marijuana patch and he can't figure out which woman it came from. That's just vile, man. But I guess it fits in well with the loathing and arrogance that typifies much of Mailer's writing. I guess it's a relief that he has no pretensions to literary grandeur in this book. But then again, a mystery that fails to maintain the reader's interest can also be a tough row to hoe. I read this a while back when I was under the mistaken impression that Mailer was a major author. Now, I realize that he is essentially a joke, so I will be spared the mistake of reading more garbage like this.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I hoped for
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I hoped for
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: No wonder I waited so long
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Fun But Disappointing
Review: I picked this one up because I'd never read any Mailer and figured it was about time. Maybe I should have stuck with one of the classics, but the library was out of Armies of the Night and Naked and the Dead. No question, he can write, and had no trouble sustaining my interest for the 225 pages or so. But the premise that sucks you in -- man wakes up to find he's gotten a tatoo he can't remember getting, and may have been on a killing spree he also can't remember -- leads to a terribly convoluted tale that deserved -- and needed -- a much more careful rendering. Had Mailer taken twice as many pages and the trouble to lead the reader through the story, it might have been fascinating to see how the intricate plot developed, but after a hundred and fifty fun pages he just decides to throw the explanation for everything at you all at once, like a B-movie in which the villain for some unexplained reason just can't stop explaining his scheme to the hero before killing him. In fact, that's exactly what happens. I felt cheated, as though he just didn't want to bother.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: I wouldn't guess that Mailer was one of America's Greatest Writers Ever by this book. It seemed too contrived. The ending was a bit too Matlock for me (we learn the conspiracy through much monologue). But, then again, Mailer gets away with this, since it's done fairly well. Definitely a good book, hence the Star Rating I give. If you do enjoy this book, read Denis Johnson's ALREADY DEAD, for it's extremely similar ; I do believe Johnson did it on purpose.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining
Review: 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 [e-mail]