[In honor of my
about-to-conclude grad
class on Analyzing 21st Century America, a series on great
recent literary works, with the same Af Am lit through-line that I brought to
the class!]
Five recent
novels that stake their claim to the title of Great American Novel.
1)
Behold the Dreamers (2016): Imbolo Mbue’s stunning debut
novel is a historical novel about the 2008 financial crisis and recession, a
multi-generational immigrant saga of a young family from Cameroon, a novel of
manners about class and inequality in contemporary New York, a bittersweet romance,
and a moving depiction of the promise and limits of the American Dream. Among
other things!
2)
Lovecraft Country (2016): It might be enough just to note
that Jordan
Peele’s first project after his Oscar-winning Get Out will be to produce an adaptation of Matt Ruff’s
supernatural historical novel for HBO. But if I need to say more, I’ll note
that Ruff’s gripping page-turner combines John
Bellairs and Ralph
Ellison, among many other influences (including of course the weird
tales of H.P. Lovecraft and his peers), to produce something entirely new.
Some critics might argue that genre fiction can’t also compete for the Great
American Novel crown; those critics would be wrong, as Ruff illustrates
perfectly.
3)
Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017): I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t
yet had a chance to read Jesmyn
Ward’s acclaimed new novel. So I won’t pretend otherwise or say too much
here, other than that anything Ward writes is to my mind an automatic contender
for any and all accolades, and that from everything I’ve read Sing takes her talents to one more level
still. You’ll be the first to hear when I do get to check it out, dear readers!
4)
The Sympathizer (2015): As Philip Caputo (one of our foremost authorities on the Vietnam
War) argues in that hyperlinked NYT review,
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel offers a strikingly new lens through which to
read Vietnam (in relationship to the United States and the world, and on its
own complex terms). That’d be enough all by itself to make this a crucial and
great American novel. But Nguyen’s book is also funny and moving, engaging and
challenging, and utterly unique from start to finish.
5)
What is the What (2006): I know I’m stretching the meaning of “recent” a bit with
this one, but I don’t believe Dave
Eggers’s novel has gotten the attention it deserves. Perhaps that’s because
of its unsettling genre ambiguity: Eggers’s book is defined as a novel, but is
written in the first-person voice of a real person, former Lost Boy of Sudan
Valentino Achak Deng (just to add to the ambiguities, the book’s subtitle is The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng).
I get the potential landmines of those choices, but to this reader the
blurrings of genre and voice are part and parcel of this book’s unique identity
and greatness, and its engagement with some of the most pressing 21st
century issues (refugees and international crises, cross-cultural identities,
war and violence, history and hope). Like all these contenders, at the very
least What deserves to be read and
responded to by as many American readers as possible!
June Recap this
weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other recent literary works you’d highlight?
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