An American Dream: A Critical Bibliography

A curated bibliography of scholarship, interviews, and major reviews bearing on An American Dream, compiled for the An American Dream Expanded digital project (ed. Gerald R. Lucas, 2019). A reference companion to the novel's Work and reception pages.

A reference bibliography for An American Dream, compiled for the An American Dream Expanded project (ed. Gerald R. Lucas, 2019). For the contemporaneous 1965 reception in prose, see An American Dream: Reception and Reviews; for the publishing chronology, the Timeline.

Critical Studies

• Adams, Laura. Existential Battles: The Growth of Norman Mailer. Athens: Ohio UP, 1977.
• Adams, Laura, ed. Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up. Port Washington; London: Kennikat Press, 1974.
• Aldridge, John W. Time to Murder and Create: The Contemporary Novel in Crisis. New York: David McKay, 1966.
• Begiebing, Robert J. Acts of Regeneration: Allegory and Archetype in the Works of Norman Mailer. Columbia; London: University of Missouri Press, 1980.
• Bloom, Harold, ed. Norman Mailer. Modern Critical Views. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1986.
• Braudy, Leo, ed. Norman Mailer: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972.
• Broer, Lawrence R. “Meta-Modernism in An American Dream.” The Mailer Review 10.1 (2016): 99–116.
• Bufithis, Philip. Norman Mailer. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978.
• Cotkin, George. Existential America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
• Dickstein, Morris. Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
• Ehrlich, Robert. Norman Mailer: The Radical as Hipster. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978.
• Fetterley, Judith. “An American Dream: ‘Hula, Hula,’ Said the Witches.” In J. Michael Lennon, ed., Critical Essays on Norman Mailer. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986. 136–144.
• Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.
• Glenday, Michael K. Norman Mailer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
• Glickman, Susan. “The World as Will and Idea: A Comparative Study of An American Dream and Mr. Sammler’s Planet.” Modern Fiction Studies 28 (1982–83): 569–582.
• Gordon, Andrew. An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer. London: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1980.
• Gordon, Andrew. “The Modern Dream-Vision: Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and Mailer’s An American Dream.” Literature and Psychology 27.3 (1977): 100–105.
• Gutman, Stanley T. Mankind in Barbary: The Individual and Society in the Novels of Norman Mailer. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1975.
• Hampton, Jill. Mythic Mailer in An American Dream. M.A. thesis, University of Illinois at Springfield, 1990.
• Kaufmann, Donald. “An American Dream: The Singular Nightmare.” The Mailer Review 1.1 (2007 [1969]): 194–214.
• Kaufmann, Donald. Norman Mailer: The Countdown (The First Twenty Years). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.
• Langbaum, Robert. “Mailer’s New Style.” Novel (Fall 1968): 69–78.
• Langbaum, Robert. The Modern Spirit: Essays on the Continuity of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Leeds, Barry H. The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer. New York: NYU Press, 1969.
• Leeds, Barry H. The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer. Bainbridge Island, WA: Pleasure Boat Studio, 2002.
• Leeds, Barry H. “Scorsese vs. Mailer: Boxing as Redemption in Raging Bull and An American Dream.” Unpublished essay, 1993. 1–11.
• Lennon, J. Michael, ed. Critical Essays on Norman Mailer. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986.
• Lennon, J. Michael, ed. Norman Mailer’s Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969. Shavertown, PA: Sligo Press, 2004. (04.7)
• Lucid, Robert F., ed. Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.
• Madden, David, ed. American Dreams, American Nightmares. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970.
• McConnell, Frank D. “Norman Mailer and the Cutting Edge of Style.” In Four Postwar American Novelists: Bellow, Mailer, Barth and Pynchon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
• McKinley, Maggie. “Existentialism, Violent Liberation, and Racialized Masculinities: Norman Mailer’s ‘The White Negro’ and An American Dream.” In Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–75. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
• McKinley, Maggie. “Mailer’s Modern Myth: Reexamining Violence and Masculinity in An American Dream.” The Mailer Review 6.1 (Fall 2012): 158–169.
• Meloy, Michael. “Tales of the ‘Great Bitch’: Murder and the Release of Virile Desire in An American Dream.” The Mailer Review 3.1 (2009): 337–356.
• Merrill, Robert. Norman Mailer Revisited. Boston: Twayne, 1992.
• Millett, Kate. “Norman Mailer.” In Sexual Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016 [1970]. 314–335.
• Parker, Hershel. Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons: Literary Authority in American Fiction. 1972.
• Poirier, Richard. Norman Mailer. Modern Masters. New York: Viking Press, 1972.
• Radford, Jean. Norman Mailer: A Critical Study. London; Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1975.
• Schulz, Max F. Radical Sophistication: Studies in Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969.
• Solotaroff, Robert. Down Mailer’s Way. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974.
• Tanner, Tony. “On the Parapet.” In City of Words: American Fiction 1950–1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. 344–371.
• Toback, James. “Norman Mailer Today.” Commentary (October 1967): 67–76.
• Wagenheim, Allan J. “Square’s Progress: An American Dream.” Critique 10 (1968): 45–68.
• Weber, Brom. “A Fear of Dying: Norman Mailer’s An American Dream.” The Hollins Critic 2.3 (1965): 1–11.
• Weinberg, Helen A. The New Novel in America: The Kafkan Mode in Contemporary Fiction. New York: Cornell University Press, 1970.
• Wood, Margery. “Norman Mailer and Nathalie Sarraute: A Comparison of Existential Novels.” Minnesota Review 6 (1966): 68–76.

Interviews

• Adams, Laura. “Existential Aesthetics: An Interview with Norman Mailer.” Partisan Review 42 (Summer 1975): 197–214.
• Bower, Brock. “In This Corner, Norman Mailer: Never the Champion, Always the Challenger.” Life (15 October 1965): 94–117.
• Carroll, Paul. “Playboy Interview: Norman Mailer.” Playboy (January 1968): 69–84.
• Gelmis, Joseph. The Film Director as Superstar. New York: Doubleday, 1970.
• MacGregor, Martha. “The Week in Books.” New York Post (14 March 1965).
• Matz, Charles. “Mailer’s Opera.” Opera News 34.17 (1970): 14–16.
• Medwick, Cathleen. “Norman Mailer on Love, Sex, God and the Devil.” Vogue (December 1980): 268–322.
• “Mr. Mailer Interviews Himself.” New York Times Book Review (17 September 1967): 4–5, 40.
• “Norman Mailer on An American Dream.” New York Post (25 March 1965): 38.
• Weber, Nancy. “Norman Mailer’s ‘American Dream’: Superman Returns.” Books, New York Post (March 1965): 14–16.
• Young, Gavin. “A Conversation with Norman Mailer.” Observer Weekly (London) (26 April 1964): 26.

Major Reviews

• Aldridge, John W. “The Big Comeback of Norman Mailer.” Life (19 March 1965): 12.
• Alvarez, A. “Norman X.” The Spectator (7 May 1965): 603.
• Bersani, Leo. “Interpretation of Dreams.” Partisan Review 32 (Fall 1965): 603–608.
• Corrington, John William. “An American Dreamer.” Chicago Review 18 (1965): 58–66.
• Didion, Joan. “A Social Eye.” National Review (20 April 1965): 329–330.
• Epstein, Joseph. “Norman X: The Literary Man’s Cassius Clay.” New Republic (17 April 1965): 22, 24–25.
• Hardwick, Elizabeth. “Bad Boy.” Partisan Review 32 (Spring 1965): 291–294.
• “In Carcinoma City.” Times Literary Supplement (London) (29 April 1965): 325.
• Hyman, Stanley Edgar. “Norman Mailer’s Yummy Rump.” New Leader (15 March 1965): 16–17.
• Kermode, Frank. “Rammel.” New Statesman (14 May 1965): 765–766.
• Knickerbocker, Conrad. “A Man Desperate for a New Life.” New York Times Book Review (14 March 1965): 1, 36, 38–39.
• Muste, John M. “Nightmarish Mailer.” Progressive (February 1965): 49–51.
• Pickerel, Paul. “Thing of Darkness.” Harper’s (April 1965): 116–117.
• Poirier, Richard. “‘Morbid-Mindedness.’” Commentary (June 1965): 91–94.
• Rahv, Philip. “Crime without Punishment.” New York Review of Books (25 March 1965): 1–4.
• Ricks, Christopher. “Saint Stephen.” New Statesman (30 April 1965): 687.
• Shattuck, Roger. “Books: An American Dream.” Village Voice (13 May 1965): 5, 22.
• Weber, Brom. “A Fear of Dying: Norman Mailer’s An American Dream.” Hollins Critic 2 (June 1965): 8–11.
• Wolfe, Tom. “Son of Crime and Punishment, or: How to Go Eight Fast Rounds with the Heavyweight Champ and Lose.” Book Week (Washington Post) (14 March 1965): 1, 10, 12–13.

Related pages

• An American Dream | An American Dream: Reception and Reviews, 1965 | An American Dream: Timeline of Events, 1962–1966 | Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969

First published: 2019
Form: criticism
Cite as: /works/1965-an-american-dream-bibliography
Last updated: 2026-06-18