Episode 78: The Great American Novel

The idea of the Great American Novel is controversial, passé, hubristic, and . . . always fascinating to talk about. This week, inspired by a recent list of potential candidates for the Great American Novel published in The Atlantic, we dive in and talk about the concept, the history, the list, and our votes for other contenders. What book(s) would get your vote?

---

Shownotes

Books

• The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova

• Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time, by Kapka Kassabova

• To the River: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace, by Kapka Kassabova

• Anima: A Wild Pastoral, by Kapka Kassabova

• Dante: The Inferno, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

• Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope

• The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope

• Phineas Reduce, by Anthony Trollope

• Mortal Leap, by MacDonald Harris

• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• James, by Percival Everett

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

• Augustus, by John Williams

• Butcher’s Crossing, by John Williams

• Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner

• Passing, by Nella Larsen

• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures, by Maureen Corrigan

• The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein

• An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

• Light in August, by William Faulkner

• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

• Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes

• I Am Alien to Life: Selected Stories, by Djuna Barnes

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

• The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

• Ask the Dust, by John Fante

• Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by John Fante

• U.S.A., by John Dos Passos

• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

• In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes

• All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren

• The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers

• The Street, by Ann Petry

• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford

• A Time to Be Born, by Dawn Powell

• The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

• Fahrenheit 451, by Raymond Bradbury

• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

• Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White

• The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow

• Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

• The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

• No-No Boy, by John Okada

• Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious

• Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov

• Another Country, by James Baldwin

• Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey

• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

• The Zebra-Striped Hearse, by Ross MacDonald

• The Group, by Mary McCarthy

• The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

• The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

• A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter

• Couples, by John Updike

• Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth

• Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth

• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth

• The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

• The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

• Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion

• Sula, by Toni Morrison

• Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

• Beloved, by Toni Morrison

• Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

• Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox

• Log of the S.S. Mrs Unguentine, by Stanley Crawford

• The Revolt of the Cockroach People, by Oscar Zeta Acosta

• Oreo, by Fran Ross

• The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin

• Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

• Corregidora, by Gayl Jones

• Speedboat, by Renata Adler

• Dancer from the Dance, by Andrew Hollerman

• The Stand, by Stephen King

• Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

• Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson

• Machine Dreams, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Lark & Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Shelter, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Little, Big: Or, the Fairies’ Parliament, by John Crowley

• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

• Dawn, by Octavia Butler

• Geek Love, by Kathryn Dunn

• Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

• American Psycho, by Brett Easton Ellis

• House of Leaves, by Mark C. Danielewski

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

• The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt

• The Quick and the Dead, by Joy Williams

• Erasure, by Percival Everett

• The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen

• The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, by Gary Shteyngart

• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz

• Nevada, by Imogen Binnie

• Open City, by Teju Cole

• The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

• Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

• Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso

• Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

• Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson

• The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell

• No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood

• The Love Song of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

• Biography of X, by Catherine Lacey

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

Links

• The Great American Novel from The Atlantic

• John William DeForest’s original article about The Great American Novel

• A.O. Scott “Tracking the ever-elusive Great American Novel

• Episode 37: Hotel Novels

---

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!