Author:Norman Mailer

As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go.
It is the triumph of this novel that Doyle - entirely without condescension - shows the inner life of this battered housewife to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe
—— Mary Gordon , New York Times Book ReviewIn feeling the pulse of a raw Dublin suburb, Doyle is recording a beat that can be recognised all over the world
—— The TimesThis new novel is Roddy Doyle's best to date. I cannot recall any writer who has better captured the vulnerability and courage of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage
—— Cork ExaminerEven more mesmerizing than his prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
—— Daily MailImpassioned, dignified and richly humane
—— IndependentHis best work yet
—— The TimesCompulsively readable
—— Financial TimesRoddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood
—— The TimesPaula Spencer may be Doyle's most successful literary creation yet, a tour de force of literary ventriloquism that gives the lie to the old writing workshop canard that a man can't write from the point of view of a woman, let alone in her voice
—— Washington PostA complex and intricate portrait of an unlikely, yet likable, heroine
—— Calum Macdonald , The Herald






