The Deer Park

A Novel

Amid the cactus wilds some two hundred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place for starlets and would-be starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic of 1950s Hollywood, 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.

©1955, and copyright renewed 1983 Norman Mailer. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Second Reading 60 Years Later

Loved this book when I was a teen. The prose holds up, but the story does not have much pep. It could be a novelization drawn from a network TV series. Still, it is Norman Mailer.

Buffaloed

John Buffalo Mailer has a great reading voice. But he shouldn't attempt accents. His character voices are inconsistent and ambiguous and range between Edward G. Robinson's gangster voice and an unintentionally funny Rodney Dangerfield voice, "I tell ya."
And his southern accent falls flat.
In all, his various accents distract from the narrative.

Please re-record the book and just read it. We'll fill in the blanks in our minds as to who's who.

Horrible

Worst book I’ve ever read. Couldn’t even finish it! Didn’t understand the plot. Waste of money.