In 1868, a little-known author by the identify of John William DeForest proposed a brand new sort of literature, a collective inventive undertaking for a nation simply rising from an existential battle: a piece of fiction that achieved “the duty of portray the American soul.” It might be referred to as the Nice American Novel, and nobody had written it but, DeForest admitted. Perhaps quickly.
A century and a half later, the thought has endured, even because it has change into extra difficult. In 2024, our definition of literary greatness is wider, deeper, and weirder than DeForest possible may have imagined. On the identical time, the novel can also be beneath risk, because the forces of anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism search to ban books and curtail freedom of expression. The American canon is extra capacious, extra fluid, and extra fragile than maybe ever earlier than. However what, precisely, is in it? What follows is our try to find simply that.
In getting down to determine that new American canon, we determined to outline American as having first been printed in the US (or meant to be—learn extra in our entries on Lolita and The Bell Jar). And we narrowed our aperture to the previous 100 years—a interval that started as literary modernism was cresting and comprises all method of literary pleasure and chance, together with the experimentations of postmodernism and the narrative satisfactions of style fiction.
This nonetheless left hundreds of thousands of potential titles. So we approached consultants—students, critics, and novelists, each at The Atlantic and outdoors it—and requested for his or her recommendations. From there, we added and subtracted and debated and negotiated and regarded and reconsidered till we landed on the record you’re about to learn. We didn’t restrict ourselves to a spherical, arbitrary quantity; we needed to acknowledge the easiest—novels that say one thing intriguing concerning the world and do it distinctively, in intentional, suave prose—irrespective of what number of or few that ended up being (136, because it seems). Our purpose was to single out these classics that stand the check of time, but additionally to make the case for the surprising, the unfairly forgotten, and the lately printed works that already really feel indelible. We aimed for comprehensiveness, rigor, and open-mindedness. Serendipity, too: We hoped to duplicate that individual pleasure of a good friend urgent a ebook into your hand and saying, “You need to learn this; you’ll adore it.”
This record consists of 45 debut novels, 9 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and three youngsters’s books. Twelve had been printed earlier than the introduction of the mass-market paperback to America, and 24 after the discharge of the Kindle. A minimum of 60 have been banned by faculties or libraries. Collectively, they signify the perfect of what novels can do: problem us, delight us, pull us in after which launch us, a bit smarter and a bit extra alive than we had been earlier than. You need to learn them.
Supply hyperlink
