Index
← All Paths

The American Century

Melville chases the white whale. Twain floats the river. Fitzgerald watches the dream rot. Hemingway and Faulkner fight over how to describe the damage. Steinbeck documents the dispossessed. Hurston, Wright, and Ellison write the America that was always there and never acknowledged. Kerouac drives. Heller and Vonnegut laugh at the carnage. McCarthy salts the earth. Wallace tries to say everything and Bolano, the outsider, sees the whole thing more clearly than anyone inside it.

0 of 22 read
  1. 1
    Moby-DickHerman Melville (1851)
  2. 2
    Huckleberry FinnMark Twain (1884)
  3. 3
    The Scarlet LetterNathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
  4. 4
    The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
  5. 5
    The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway (1926)
  6. 6
    A Farewell to ArmsErnest Hemingway (1929)
  7. 7
    The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner (1929)
  8. 8
    The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck (1939)
  9. 9
    East of EdenJohn Steinbeck (1952)
  10. 10
    Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston (1937)
  11. 11
    Native SonRichard Wright (1940)
  12. 12
    Invisible ManRalph Ellison (1952)
  13. 13
    The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger (1951)
  14. 14
    On The RoadJack Kerouac (1957)
  15. 15
    Catch-22Joseph Heller (1961)
  16. 16
    In Cold BloodTruman Capote (1966)
  17. 17
    Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut (1969)
  18. 18
    Song of SolomonToni Morrison (1977)
  19. 19
    Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy (1985)
  20. 20
    American PastoralPhilip Roth (1997)
  21. 21
    Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace (1996)
  22. 22
    The Savage DetectivesRoberto Bolaño (1998)