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He is Stephen Rojack. He's a war-hero, ex-Congressman, professor and TV talk show host, who has just murdered his wife. It is seemingly his last night on Earth. Running wild in the scandalous city of New York.

The story opens with Rojack alone on a New York balcony, contemplating his own death and his acceptance of the mad façade which he sees as his life. It is his fear of death (and madness) that leads him to murder his wife and thus destroy the false persona which he has become; the unfulfilled actor plagued by a fear of death. In Rojack's mind, just as Deborah (his wife) had the power to create him, she can as easily destroy him. So he gets to her first.

The moon imagery used throughout this work embodies Rojack's affair with madness. It also represents his cycle of life, death and rebirth. His soul dies at the beginning as he contemplates suicide on the balcony. The remainder of the novel takes place during the night, in which a sleepless Rojack runs throughout the city, acting impulsively and irrationally, with carte-blanche power; a soulless man in the soulless city of New York. Finally, near the novel's end, we witness Rojack's rebirth. By fulfilling his existential bargain with the moon he walks around the perimeter of Barney Kelly's balcony, earning atonement for his crime, and thus saving himself — but only to some extent.

What would your life be like if you bargained with the Devil? The whole book is about an internal struggle. The stream of consciousness narrative highlights Rojack's swirling thoughts and erratic actions. Externally, we experience a difficulty reading this work. Consequently, the book can be quite distasteful at times. It is also quite unusual to have a protagonist, who in addition to being an anti-hero, commits a terrible act AND gets away with it. And yet, we end up with a man whose punishment is darker, more chilling and real than any official punishment can ever be.

And we do tend to sympathize with Rojack, the murderer. Mailer, at times, portrays him delicately; a man with such intelligence, integrity and charisma that he is in our good graces, despite his violent act.

It is important to note that this is largely a moral tale, and that our final judgment of Rojack is colored by how we judge the other characters. Dualism is a central theme throughout Mailer's work. We see a duality within Rojack, yet this duality is present in all of the characters — all of whom have their true self versus their public self. Mailer helps us to sympathize with and better understand Rojack by creating other "innocent" characters (Debra, Barney Kelly, even Roberts), who are not only equally dishonest, but also guilty of their own private despicable acts. The difference between them being that Rojack's crime enters the public sphere, while those of the others remain private.

The setting of New York is appropriate and telling here; the city is a microcosm of societal breakdown. How can we judge one vile act against a backdrop of countless others? This is a technique also used in Saul Bellow's Seize the Day and Alan Moore's Watchmen. They all examine the nature of self-exploration, and the journey of life, death and finally rebirth. But, contrary to Wilhelm's rebirth in Seize the Day, Rojack's is not a positive one.

In the epilog, Rojack's pilgrimage through Las Vegas and southern Missouri is particularly unsettling. Like many elements in the novel, there is ambiguity here. You wonder if perhaps Rojack didn't want to get away with it. As he walks out into the Nevada desert to look at the moon, he muses that "it was only in the desert that death would come up like a scorpion with its sting. If anyone wished to shoot me, he might have me here." It's as if he is ready for death, and disappointed that it doesn't come. Even earlier, as he balances tight-rope style on the balcony, you wonder, does he crave death? At the very least, he no longer fears death in the same way once he has killed his wife.

There is a definite change in Rojack post-murder, which seems to emphasize strength from sin. He starts to take what he wants from people. He learns to control every new situation (compared with the control he lacked in the past). Albeit, he relies on power, sex and violence to execute this control. This is the epitome of what Mailer sees as the true "American Dream", not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but rather, the ability to wield unchallenged power. He takes a character who seemingly has it all, but lacks the fulfillment of raw human desire. The character gives up everything in favor of these baser appetites, the repression of which Mailer sees as leading to madness.

By the end, we are left with an eeriness, a disconnect. Bodies. Coffin-imagery. Rojack spends 23-hours-a-day in his stale, tomb-like hotel room. The other hour he spends in extreme heat. His man-made Hell. In this chilling epilog, we see that Rojack lives in a limbo-esque impending death state, where he is able to enjoy material values (physical freedom, money — he becomes very lucky at the dice table), but lacks existential peace. Like Jack in DeLillo's White Noise, Rojack is haunted by death — the smell of the dead man from the autopsy table follows him everywhere — and he seems to "exist" only through waiting, the choice being death or madness.

Rojack finally chooses a jungle in Guatemala. To escape, he journeys deeper to the South, deep into his psyche. And here, Mailer tips his hat to William S. Burroughs. Just as Rojack finally quits the States, so Bill Lee in Junky does the same thing. He heads to South America in search of a mysterious new drug in the hope of finding Enlightenment. Yet, the real fate of these anti-heroes is left ambiguous.