What novels would be regarded as "Classic" or "Essential" American literature?

Question

I mean this broadly but I was thinking specifically too, of the "Southern Gothic" section

Answer 1

A trilogy of novels set in the Deep South and written by William Faulkner: 'The Mansion', 'The Hamlet', The Town.'

These novels- published in about 1958-1960- are timeless classics. The hot atmosphere and backwardness and raw cunning of the characters is amazing. You'll love these novels with amazing characters such as Flem Snopes who is as unforgettable as he is evil.

Faulkner received a Nobel Prize for Literature. I'm not surprised!

For sheer comic value, you might like to look at 'The Collected Novellas' of Nathaniel West. He is VERY scathing about the USA in a very funny way. Although he died in 1940 the books are very fresh and timeless.

Enjoy!

Answer 2

Awesome Southern Literature:
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
13 Stories, by Eudora Welty (and anything else by Eudora Welty)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Some other southern authors to check out would be Truman Capote and Robert Penn Warren.

Answer 3

Anything by...

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
J.D.Salinger
Sylvia Plath
John Steinbeck
WIlliam Falukner
Sherwood Anderson
Mark Twain
...and a couple of personal favourites...
Raymond Carver and Mary Gaitskill

Answer 4

Classic American Literautre? Well, if you are asking for authors. Twain, Steinbeck, Dreiser, etc would count. I am not sure that goth would fit in. Classic literature essentially transcends time and is relevant long after the period in which it was written.

Answer 5

'The Whistling Song' by Stephen Beachy, any of the many 'Spencer' novels by Robert B Parker, 'The Accident' by David Plante, any of the novels by Matthew Stadler, 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen