The Deer Park

The Deer Park Synopsis

Amid the cactus wilds some two hundred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place for starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic, Desert D'Or is a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what they really want-and how far they are willing to go to get it. As Mailer traces their couplings and uncouplings, their uneasy flirtation with success and self-extinction, he creates a legendary portrait of America's machinery of desire.
 
Praise for The Deer Park
 
"A scathing portrayal of Hollywood . . . studded with brilliant and illuminating passages."-The New York Times Book Review
 
"A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent . . . [Mailer] drives us up and down The Deer Park at breakneck speed. It is a trip through unfamiliar country, for a time funny and then unnerving."-The New Yorker
 
"Savage . . . brilliant . . . exhilarating."-The Atlantic Monthly
 
"Entertaining and wise . . . In addition to his furious energy and true ear, Mailer is simpatico with humanity . . . on a level rare in American fiction."-The New Republic
 
Praise for Norman Mailer
 
"[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation."-The New York Times
 
"A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent."-The New Yorker
 
"Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure."-The Washington Post
 
"A devastatingly alive and original creative mind."-Life
 
"Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance."-The New York Review of Books
 
"The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book."-Chicago Tribune
 
"Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream."-The Cincinnati Post