TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE

New York: Ballantine Books, 1984. First Paperback Edition, First Printing. Wrappers. Near Fine/None. SIGNED by the Author on titile page, thick 16mo (6 7/8" x 4 1/8" x 1 1/8"), photographic wrappers with silhouette of a man standing on steps overlooking a crimson sunset over the ocean, publisher's yellow page fore-edges stain, 370 numbered pages + [2] Quotations + [2] About the Author & Ballantine Ad. SIGNED neatly by NORMAN MAILER on the title page. Tight copy with some rubbing to edges and uniform moderate age-toning.<br/><br/>Norman Mailer (1923 - 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948 and brought him renown. His best-known work is often considered to be The Executioner's Song (1979) winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Mailer's Armies of the Night won another Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and the National Book Award.<br/><br/>Tough Guys Don't Dance (1984) is his noir thriller and murder mystery reminiscent of the hardboiled works of Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler. The book was adapted into a film, directed by Mailer, in 1987. Cover of this paperback repeats the dust jacket art of the cloth edition's dust jacket.