Mailer’s Tough Guys

Novelist Invites His Characters to Dance

Abstract

Mailer’s title originated in a Mafia anecdote where a don asks three professional boxers to dance with his wife at an elegant nightclub; in turn, they graciously comply. After they all have danced, one suggests, “Your turn, Signori,” and the don replies, “Tough guys don’t dance,” casting their acquiescence as a gesture of respect. Boxers bob and weave and do dance when tough guys tell them to. The anecdote embodies the conundrum in the link between power and sex. Tough Guys Don’t Dance recalls the licentious sixties in Provincetown when wild skinny dipping parties were a way to wind down from the Dionysian whirl of dancing to loud music and consciousness-altering amounts of drugs and alcohol. The parties took place in houses along the shoreline, but Mailer concentrates many into one by choosing a bay front mini-mansion much like his own house.