Really good literary novels?

[gan_naire]

I'll forever be confused as to exactly what literary fiction is, but I think the best way is to read some of the best. If possible, list newer ones instead of the classics, and also, I'm a huge fan of noir and thrillers in case that could help with giving me better suggestions.

[alleycat]

The ones that most readily come to mind for me are classics: The Stranger, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. You might put The Stranger on your list; it isn't quite noir by the classic definition, but it is dark in a way.

You could look up who won the Nobel Prize for literature and/or the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for the last ten or fifteen years if you're interested in newer works.

[blacbird]

I read a lot of semi-older novels, but I'll go with a couple I enjoyed from the last 20 years or so:

Paris Trout, by Pete Dexter
The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

For noir stuff, I have to revert to some granddaddies:

The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain. No better noir novels have ever been written.

[alleycat]

Adding to blacbird's comment . . .

Yes, they are older, but Cain and Raymond Chandler are both at the top of the noir genre.

Somewhat akin to these is a more recent book (although still from 20 or 30 years ago), The Last Good Kiss. It has one of my favorite opening lines of all time.

The Day of the Jackal is a classic thriller, and one that is a bit unusual in that the antagonist is also the protagonist in a way.

[mccardey]

Sister by Rosamund Lupton is a terrific literary thriller and very recent.

[eyeblink]

Two thrillers by Brian Moore that were Booker Prize nominated - The Colour of Blood (set in Communist-era Poland) and Lies of Silence (set in Belfast). I'd recommend them both, especially the latter, which has a sequence which is among the tensest I've ever read.

You could also try Ian McEwan's The Innocent, though a scene in the middle dealing with the disposal of a corpse is not for the squeamish. It was much toned down in the film version.

Joyce Carol Oates has written suspense thrillers under two psuedonyms (Rosamund Smith and Lauren Kelly), though the only one I've read is Lives of the Twins (aka Kindred Passions in the UK), published under the Smith name.

[RobJ]

I'll forever be confused as to exactly what literary fiction is, but I think the best way is to read some of the best. If possible, list newer ones instead of the classics, and also, I'm a huge fan of noir and thrillers in case that could help with giving me better suggestions.
Are you interested in all literary fiction suggestions, or is the fact that you're normally into thrillers a consideration?

[scarletpeaches]

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Atonement by Ian McEwan and The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields are three of the best you could possibly start with. They'll ruin other literary novels for you.

[gan_naire]

Thanks for all the great suggestions, all the books have been added to my wishlist on Amazon and I plan on buying at least four to get started. I already have a long list of books waiting to be read, I always seem to get distracted from reading, but either way they'll still be there.

I know it is smart to read outside your genre that you write, but honestly I'm the kind of guy that unless something is really happening, I'll lose interest and stop reading the book. I wouldn't mind reading just a literary novel, but I do tend to go with the noir and thrillers over any other book out there.

But even sometimes, what's thought to be an excellent book in the noir genre, I might hate the hell out of simply on the storytelling side of it and I'll stop reading it too. The one book that comes to mind that I thought I was going to love was The One Percenters by John Podgursky. It sounded like my kind of novel, then about half way through, I stopped reading because it reminded me of sitting in a bar with a drunkened bitter widow yearning for his wife and simply won't shut the hell up about random crap.

Don't get me wrong, I like a depressed or dark protagonist, but not that bad of one. And like I said the storytelling aspect of it, in my opinoin, really wasn't that good and the novel didn't seem to be planned out (or thought out) and the ending was like the author simply flipped a coin. Yes I skipped the last half of the book and went straight to the ending to find out if it would interest me enough to finish the book, it didn't.

[gan_naire]

On a side note, Double Idemnity is only 115 pages, is that because shorter books were a little more popular back then? At least the few classics I have seem on the short side. I'm just wondering how many words that would average out to and if that classifies it as a novel or a novella.

Looks like a damn good book and it's on its way to my house once it ships either way. I am a fan of shorter works of fiction, don't know why. I see a huge thick book and I always walk away, probably missing out, but the thickest book I've read (half-way) is the Bible haha.

[Graz]

"Don't get me wrong, I like a depressed or dark protagonist"

Thanks for writing that. I just finished my writing for the day and the protagonist is depressed and getting darker by the day.Trying to keep him in balance.

I enjoyed Continental Drift by Russel Banks. Protag was depressed and dark. Affliction by Banks was also good. Paris Trout is great, as is Deadwood, Gods Pocket and Spooner. Brothery Love was good and though The Paperboy was highly acclaimed, it didn't work for me. All written by Pete Dexter. When the Killings Done by TC Boyle was very good, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. A Simple Plan by Scott Smith mixes aspects of literary and commercial fiction and is very well written in the first person.

Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Ring Twice at 116 pages are both brilliant. Cain wasted no words, actions or scenes to write such good stories in so few pages.

[Dawnstorm]

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

!!!

Atonement's great, too, and I have yet to read Remains, but both books get mentioned quite a lot. I'm happy to see some love for the Stone Diaries.

[scarletpeaches]

!!!

Atonement's great, too, and I have yet to read Remains, but both books get mentioned quite a lot. I'm happy to see some love for the Stone Diaries.I got talking to a Canadian Twitterbuddy by email the other week and he recommended anything by Shields but TSD in particular. In return for me buying a copy and trying it out, he bought TRotD. I await his verdict on my choice. He already has mine on his book recommendation - and I'm only 142 pages into it.

[Dawnstorm]

I got talking to a Canadian Twitterbuddy by email the other week and he recommended anything by Shields but TSD in particular. In return for me buying a copy and trying it out, he bought TRotD. I await his verdict on my choice. He already has mine on his book recommendation - and I'm only 142 pages into it.

When I was at University, I did a seminar on the Booker price. We'd read all the books on the short list tnat year, and reflect what prizes were for, etc.

The Stone Diaries was, I thought, the best of the lot. Also good: Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River, and Michael Ignatieff, Scar Tissue. Roddy Doyle won that year with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. I thought it was the most generic book on the list.

I am going to read The Remains of the Day one day.

[Perks]

To add a few of my favorites that would probably be considered 'literary'

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire
The Book of the Dun Cow, by Walter Wangerin, Jr.
The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb

[scarletpeaches]

I Know This Much is True, by Wally LambOh how I adore you.

[Perks]

Oh how I adore you.That was a wonderful book.

[LJD]

Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
Olive Kitteridge (but it's not a novel...) by Elizabeth Strout
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Ironweed by William Kennedy

[gan_naire]

Thanks for the additional requests. Honestly when I buy books, it's 90% of the time suggested from this forum, the rest of the time, it's by the cover. I like colors!

Graz, I do love a dark protagonist. Mine tend to be more on the "for the love of God let this poor bastard die already, it's the most humane thing at this point". The ones I can't stand though are the "if this bastard doesn't do something other than piss and moan, then I'm catching this book on fire in a gypsy fashion via Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child."

[Vito]

I'll recommend a few "literary" works that might appeal to fans of noir and thrillers...

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins. This is a short novel about a small-time criminal in Boston, circa 1970. I think it's a great piece of crime fiction, and an outstanding work of "literature" as well.

To Have And Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. An overlooked Hemingway classic -- Florida, Cuba, boats, guns, good guys, bad guys...what more could you ask for? :Thumbs:

Libra by Don DeLillo, a fictional account of the JFK assassination. If you're a fan of political thrillers, you might like this one. It's much more densely written than the typical thriller, but it's worth it.

[milly]

DM Thomas' "The White Hotel" is a dark and intriguing story that imagines Sigmund Freud's relationship with a young woman suffering from sexual hysteria set against the backdrop of Nazi-Germany

Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" -the title speaks for itself I think...it's witty and colorful but a thriller and the creation of his fictional Alaskan city and its history is worth reading the novel to discover


(these are just two that come to me right now, most of the literary fiction I tend to read has more of the rambling/yearning sort of narrators who may very well be depressed or dark but I don't think I'd call their stories thrillers or dark in and of themselves)