An American Dream (1965) is a novel by Norman Mailer. The novel is narrated by its protagonist, Stephen Rojack.

Rojack is a Harvard graduate, and a former congressman. He is a decorated war hero who served in World War II. He is a professor of existential psychology at a university in New York City, and a public intellectual who hosts his own television program.

Rojack is separated from his wife, Deborah, whose father, Barney Oswald Kelly, is a millionaire. Stephen and Deborah are angry at each other. They have been unfaithful to each other She is living in a lavish apartment on the East River Drive. He is $16,000 in debt.

He visits her apartment. They quarrel, and he strangles her when he cannot control his rage. As he is leaving the apartment, he opens the door to the room of the maid, Ruta. He finds Ruta undressed, and lying in bed. She is an attractive, young woman. Rojack takes off his clothes, and has sex with Ruta. She is unaware that he has killed Deborah.

He leaves, and returns to Deborah’s apartment. He thinks about what he should do with Deborah’s body. He lifts her body, and throws it from the balcony. The body falls from the tenth floor, landing in the street, and causing a traffic accident as it is suddenly hit by a car. He calls the police, and says that there has been an accident.

Rojack tells Ruta that Deborah has killed herself. He rushes to the street, and kneels over Deborah’s body. Her head has been crushed under the front wheels of a car. A police detective named Roberts questions him, and takes him back to the apartment.

The car that had hit Deborah’s body is waiting in the street, and its passengers include an elderly man named Eddie Ganucci, his nephew Tony, and a soft-spoken woman named Cherry. Cherry has recognized Rojack, from having watched his television program.

Rojack tells Roberts that Deborah committed suicide by jumping from the balcony. Rojack is also questioned by two other detectives, O’Brien and Leznicki. Leznicki asks him why he strangled his wife, and says that her hyoid bone had been broken.

The detectives take him to the morgue to identify Deborah’s body, and then drive to the police station. Roberts asks him to confess, but Rojack refuses. The attention of the detectives, however, is drawn to Eddie Ganucci, who is a prominent figure in organized crime, and whom they have been attempting to find, in order to give him a Grand Jury subpeona. By chance, they have now located him, because Ganucci was riding in the car that hit Deborah’s body.

Leznicki reveals to Rojack that the glamorous young woman whose name is Cherry is a local nightclub singer, and that she is the girlfriend of the famous black singer, Shago Martin. Rojack is released from custody at the police station, pending the outcome of the coroner’s report.

He walks to an after-hours club where Cherry is performing that night. He listens to her sing, and they later leave the nightclub together. They go to an apartment which used to belong to Cherry’s sister. Cherry says that her sister had committed suicide after Cherry had taken her boyfriend away from her. The boyfriend had been Shago Martin, who had then fallen in love with Cherry.

Rojack has sex with Cherry. He then leaves the apartment, and returns to the police station for another interview with Roberts. Roberts tries to get him to confess to having killed Deborah, but Rojack refuses, and the coroner’s report rules that the death was a suicide. He leaves the police station, and receives a message that Deborah’s father, Barney Oswald Kelly, wants to meet him that night.

He returns to Cherry’s apartment. They make love again, and he admits to her that he killed his wife. Cherry tells him that she had been pregnant with Shago’s child, but that she had an abortion. Shago suddenly opens the door, and enters the apartment.

Shago and Rojack get into a fight, but Rojack drags Shago out of the apartment, and throws him down the stairs. Rojack returns to Cherry, and suggests that they leave New York, and that they go to Las Vegas.

He meets Barney Kelly at Kelly’s apartment in the Waldorf Towers. Kelly reveals that he had an incestuous attraction to his daughter, and that this was why he sent her to a convent when she was fifteen years old. Kelly wants Rojack to attend her funeral, but Rojack refuses. He admits to Kelly that he killed Deborah.

They go to the outdoor terrace of the apartment, and Rojack climbs the parapet, despite his fear of falling from the wall. He feels that he must, in some way, show Kelly that he has overcome his own fear of death, in order to escape Kelly’s power over him. Rojack walks along the parapet, and Kelly tries to push him, but Rojack is able to jump back down to the terrace, and to strike Kelly in the face, knocking him to the floor.

He leaves, and returns to Cherry’s apartment. When he arrives at Cherry's apartment, an ambulance and a police car are waiting in front of the building. Cherry has been beaten to death by a friend of Shago’s, and Shago has been beaten to death by an unknown assailant in Harlem.

Rojack drives to Las Vegas, and wins enough money to pay all his debts. As the novel ends, he makes plans to go to Guatemala and Yucatán.

A theme of An American Dream is the relationship between violence and sexuality. The novel tells the story of how Rojack murders his wife, and how he escapes being punished for his crime. For Rojack, violence, like sexuality, is a release of energy. He feels a sense of personal identity by acting violently. He feels that his capacity for violence reaffirms his sense of strength, and that it reaffirms his ability to overcome his own fear. An example of this is his feeling of exhilaration after he fights with Shago Martin.

Another theme of the novel is the conflict of good and evil. Deborah is described as malevolent and evil. She believes in demons, she believes that evil gives her power. Rojack sees himself as good imprisoned by evil.

Another theme of the novel is the nature of fear, including fear of death. Rojack’s history of heroism as a soldier during World War II was a consequence of his losing concern about the possibility that he might be killed. But this experience also caused him to look into the abyss of self-doubt, the void at the center of his personality.

This perception of fear also motivated him to become a professor of existential psychology. As a professor of psychology, he has proposed the theory that the root of neurosis is cowardice rather than Oedipal anxiety. He tells us that he has had a popular book published, entitled The Psychology of the Hangman. This book has proposed the thesis that magic, dread, and the perception of death are the roots of motivation.

Rojack repeatedly confronts his fear; for example, when he considers jumping from the balcony of an apartment at the beginning of the novel, and later when he considers confessing his crime to the police. He confronts his fear again when he walks on the parapet of the terrace at Barney Kelly’s apartment.

This theme of fear is related to the question of how an individual can achieve some form of self-identification in a world of violence and irrationality. Rojack’s attempt to define himself by violence reflects the void at the center of his personality.

The 'American Dream' for Stephen Rojack represents a nightmare, a loss of hope, a betrayal of human possibility.