The Deer Park

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