Famous American writers of the 20th century. American writers and their works
Modern American literature is a whole army interesting authors and a sea of various books. It's very easy to get lost here. Together with the MTS Mobile Library, we've put together a guide to the most important writers in the US right now. Of course, not all were included in the list.
JONATHAN FRANZEN
Why is he on our list? Franzen is called perhaps the most important writer modern America. He returns the reader to the form of a long novel, ignoring that this is not very fashionable now. To understand Franzen a little, it is worth knowing that he chooses Faulkner over Hemingway, admires Tolstoy and proudly considers Nabokov an American writer. For his novel “Corrections,” Jonathan Franzen received the prestigious National book prize.
Of course this "Sinlessness" . The Odyssey of a young girl named Purity, who did not know her father and is trying to find him. She is helped and hindered in her search by internet libertarian Andreas Wolf, independent journalist Tom Aberant and paranoid mother Anabel.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
Other Important Books by Franzen
"Amendments"- America, 1990s. The Lambert family, whose head suffers from Parkinson's disease, gets together for Christmas to unwittingly start the usual family squabbles.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
"Freedom"- America, it’s already the 2000s, 9/11 is behind us. Walter and Patti Berglund try to save their marriage and reflect on their search for freedom.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
DON DELILLO
Why is he on our list? Famed critic Harold Bloom (the same one who derided Stephen King for his National Book Award) named Don DeLillo one of the most important American writers of his time, along with Pynchon, Roth and McCarthy.
In his youth, he read a lot of Faulkner and Hemingway (they are usually contrasted with each other), began writing to escape work, and eventually became a famous postmodernist writer. The novel “White Noise” brought Don DeLillo a resounding success - the National Book Award in 1985.
His Great American Novel
Novels are equally vying for this role. "White noise" And "Scales". Let's dwell on the latter, because this book is about “the seven seconds that broke the back of America” - the assassination of Kennedy. The book tells the stories of Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA agents who planned the fake assassination attempt on JFK (conspiracy theory!), and archivist Nicholas Branch studying the assassination.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by DeLillo
"White noise" - satirical story about a professor of Hitler studies who is terribly afraid of death, and also of exposure in his “scientific” discipline. DeLillo also targets TV, religion, supermarkets, etc.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
"Falling"- one of the first attempts in American literature to comprehend the tragedy of 9/11. The hero sees the towers fall and is forced to live with this catastrophic experience.
CORMACK McCARTHY
Why is he on our list? Thanks to McCarthy, Javier Bardem played one of his best roles - the psychopath Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers' thriller No Country for Old Men. McCarthy, of course, wrote the novel of the same name. Very seriously, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most venerable American writers, who is often called Faulkner's heir.
His books are included in various top 100 best novels in English. McCarthy received a Pulitzer Prize for The Road. Horses, Horses won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics' Award.
His Great American Novel
"Blood Meridian"
- cruel story a teenager who joins a gang of thugs on the US-Mexico border. War against everyone: Indians, Mexicans, rangers, each other. A gritty novel about the nature of violence.
Other Important Books by McCarthy
"Horses, horses" - seems to be a novel about a young cowboy who rushed to Mexico from West Texas after the death of his grandfather. In fact, the book is about growing up and testing the spirit.
"Road"- hopeless post-apocalyptic. Father and son try to cross former America, destroyed by a cataclysm to reach the sea.
Cost in MTS mobile library :
MICHAEL CHABON
Why is he on our list? Chabon is equally good at psychological novels, detective stories, science fiction - he turns all this into unique intellectual prose. The novels "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" (the first) and "Geeks" (the second) were filmed, and it is a pity that this has not yet happened with "The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."
Michael Chabon imagined a Jewish colony in Alaska and won two major science fiction awards, the Hugo and the Nebula, for his novel The Jewish Policemen's Union. And the novel about Cavalier and Clay brought him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize and an American literary prize PEN/Faulkner. Yes, Chabon also had a hand in the film “Spider-Man 2”, becoming a screenwriter.
His Great American Novel
"The Incredible Adventures of Cavalier and Clay" - a novel about the American dream that the heroes are trying to achieve. Josef Kavaler flees from the Nazis in a coffin with a golem, his cousin Sammy draws comics in New York. Two geeks come up with a hand-drawn hero, the Escapist, who fights Hitler, and begin to conquer the American comics industry.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other Important Books by Chabon
"Union of Jewish Policemen" - inseparable friends, detectives Meir Landsman and Berko Shemets, are investigating the murder of a famous chess player. This is happening in Jewish Alaska.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 2 rubles if read in 10 days.
"Moonlight" - Memoirs of Chabon's grandfather, turned into literature. Main character participates in World War II, hunts for German rocket scientists and Wernher von Braun, collaborates with NASA, falls in love with a Jewish girl... Chabon's very personal book.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
STEPHEN KING
Why is he on our list? In his books, Stephen King looks closely at nature ordinary person, not always attractive. And if you want to consider him a horror writer, then you risk following a not very smart stereotype.
It is simply pointless to list all of King’s awards and achievements; there are too many of them. Let's just say that in 2003 he received a medal for outstanding contribution to American literature (US National Book Award).
His Great American Novel
"Hearts in Atlantis" - a poignant book, deliberately collected from fragmentary stories. The girl whom the hero of the first story saves from bullies grows into a rebellious student. She appears in the second story of the novel, the most “American”, where King described the college campus of the 1970s, the life of young Americans and the protests against Vietnam. Looping the story, King brings the heroes together again in the finale...
Other important books by King
"It"- an amazing story about a childhood friendship that is destined to be severely tested. After all, the terrifying monster wants everyone to go flying.
"Confrontation" - when the world falls from the flu epidemic, Randall Flagg, the “black man”, the dark messiah, will appear on the scene. But many Americans will not want to submit to him.
DONNA TARTT
Why is she on our list? Donna Tartt writes her novels every ten years. She published three books in total: “ Secret history"(1992), " Little friend"(2002) and "The Goldfinch" (2013). But despite their small number, Donna Tartt has already taken important place in American literature. Her novels are compared to the books of Shakespeare, Dickens and Umberto Eco (at first glance, quite strange). Tartt immerses the reader, as she herself says, in gleeful, greedy reading.
The last novel brought the writer the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal for the best book of fiction in the United States.
This "Goldfinch"- an adventure novel and a novel of education in one. Young Theo Decker loses his mother in a New York museum explosion. This is where his wanderings across families, cities and time begin. Throughout his life, Theo has been accompanied by the painting “The Goldfinch,” which he inexplicably stole from the museum after the explosion.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 5 rubles if read in 25 days.
Two other important books by Tartt
"Secret History" - the adult hero remembers a strange murder in college that destroyed a group of friends.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
"Little friend" - an example of American “Southern Gothic” in a modern version. Young Harriet tries to unravel the mystery of her tragic death. younger brother, which happened when she was three years old.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 4 rubles if read in 20 days.
THOMAS PYNCHON
Why is he on our list? Because he wrote Gravity's Rainbow. In principle, this was enough to secure a place for himself in eternity. Rumor has it that Pynchon attended Nabokov's seminar at Cornell University. And also for a long time They thought about him that he was Salinger, so successfully Pynchon kept his incognito.
Pynchon's favorite topics are entropy, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and opposition to the System. Pynchon greatly influenced postmodernism and the cyberpunk novel. By the way, they decided not to award him the 1974 Pulitzer Prize - his “Rainbow” was considered unreadable and obscene. Pynchon himself did not accept the National Book Award for the novel, sending the stand-up comedian to the award ceremony.
His Great American Novel
Despite everything, this is not "Rainbow" (it is too complex and cosmopolitan for that), but "Birth Defect" . America in the early 1970s, detective with a hippie background, Doc Sportello, is looking for an ex-girlfriend and her rich admirer. The classic confrontation between the outsider and the System.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by Pynchon
"Gravity's Rainbow" - a complex plot is built around the search for the mysterious “black block” for the V-2 rocket with the number 00000. “Rainbow” is considered the most complex postmodern novel of the 20th century.
"Lot 49 Shouts Out" - confrontation between two postal companies Thurn und Taxis and Trystero. The latter, fictional, is considered the prototype of the Internet and e-mail.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
TOM WOLFE
Why is he on our list? He knows how to wear a white suit perfectly! In fact, Tom Wolfe - bright Star American documentary, prose and journalism. Moreover, he practically invented the “new journalism”, perceiving the newspaper genre as a real art.
He wrote about cool non-fiction, about the American auto industry during its heyday, the brilliant Ken Kesey and the hippie commune of the Merry Pranksters, the space battle between the Americans and the Russians. Author of four novels, the last one written in 2012. Recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for contributions to American literature.
His Great American Novel
"Bonfires of Ambition" - a bright canvas depicting New York in the 1980s, and at the same time a novel touching on the social problem of racism and stratification of society. A stockbroker and his mistress accidentally run over a teenager in the black ghetto and he dies. The culprits hide the accident, but terrible secret can't keep it a secret...
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Other important books by Wolfe
"Voice of Blood" - the book describes modern Miami, where immigrants from all over the world mix. The plot centers on a policeman who is forced to balance between the law and the interests of his diaspora.
"Electro-cooling acid test" - a story about the life of Ken Kesey from 1958 to 1966 and his influence on the American subculture, in particular the hippies. A masterpiece of new journalism.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 2 rubles if read in 10 days.
JENNIFER EGAN
Why is she on our list? Jennifer Egan is considered one of the most interesting modern women writers America, although she did not write that much (note, more than Donna Tartt). Egan started out writing novellas for The New Yorker and New York Times magazine. Her debut novel, The Invisible Circus, was made into a film starring Cameron Diaz.
In 2010, Jennifer Egan received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Time Has the Last Laugh.
Her Great American Novel
"Time has the last laugh" - the youth of the heroes coincided with the birth of punk rock, and today they are already over forty. The successful producer and failed punk rocker Benny Salazar continues his run in the circle of rock music, breakouts, tours, etc. But time does not lag behind the heroes one step.
Other Important Books by Egan
"Citadel"- story cousins who met twenty years later. One of them has changed a lot and now invited the second to restore the neglected mansion he bought. The old castle promises the brothers many surprises.
"Invisible Circus" (not translated yet) - the young heroine goes to Portugal in the footsteps of her hippie older sister, who unexpectedly committed suicide.
WILLIAM GIBSON
Why is he on our list? Of course, he's here primarily because of Neuromancer and the elegant unique style. The mentioned novel became the “New Testament of Cyberpunk” (according to Timothy Leary), in fact, it gave birth to this genre, unleashed literary war with American science fiction and humanists. "Neuromancer" collected all the significant awards in science fiction: Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick Award, Australian Ditmar and Japanese Seiun Award.
To Gibson's credit, he shook the dust of cyberpunk off his feet as the genre began to die, and moved on to futuristic fiction exploring new media, technology, religion, etc. He owns famous saying: “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”
His Great Post-American Novel
"Peripherals" , last novel writer. For Gibson, America no longer exists as a single state. The heroine Flynn and her brother Burton, a veteran of a local war, are forced to earn extra money as semi-legal freelancers in online games. One such game turns out to be not a game at all, but another reality, the inhabitants of which manipulate people in our world.
Cost in MTS mobile library : 3 rubles if read in 15 days.
Gibson's other important books
The entire trilogy "Cyberspace" , including “Neuromancer”, “Count Zero”, “Mona Lisa Overdrive”: information matrix hacking, illegal technologies, cyber war with corporations and the Yakuza, bioimplants, etc.
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September 24 is the 120th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous American writers, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. It is also one of the most difficult to understand, although at first the reader's eyes and mind are blinded by the glamor of the parties described, deep moral and social problems lie behind it. The editors of YUGA.ru, together with the “Read-Gorod” bookstore chain, have selected six more iconic works for this date that will help you look at America and Americans with different eyes.
"The Great Gatsby" - great novel, but there is no greatness either in the life or in the soul of his main character, there are only sparkling illusions, “which give the world such color that, having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false.” The wealthy millionaire Jay Gatsby had already lost them and, along with them, lost the opportunity to again feel the taste of life and love - and yet all their treasures were at his feet.
The reader is presented with the America of Prohibition, gangsters, playmakers and brilliant parties to the music of Duke Ellington. That very “jazz age,” a magnificent age when it still seemed that all desires would come true, and you could get a star from the sky without even standing on your tiptoes.
The portrait of the main character of the "Trilogy of Desire" series, Frank Cowperwood, is largely based on a real-life person, millionaire Charles Yerkes, and in the last few years, viewers around the world have been following the life of central figure series "House of Cards", Frank Underwood. It can be assumed that the president even borrowed the name “great and terrible” from the character created by Dreiser. His whole life revolves around success, he is a shrewd financier and builds his empire, using everything and everyone for his own purposes. That’s exactly what “The Financier” is called, the first novel of the trilogy, where we see how the personality of a prudent businessman was formed, who is ready, without hesitation, to step over the law and moral principles, if they become an obstacle on his way.
The most acutely social and accusatory book ever written in the USA and about the USA, The Grapes of Wrath has perhaps no impact on the reader. less texts Solzhenitsyn. The cult novel was first published in 1939, won the Pulitzer Prize, and the author himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. A portrait of a nation during one of the most difficult periods in history, the Great Depression, is painted through the story of a farming family who, after going bankrupt, are forced to uproot and seek food on a grueling journey across the country on that same "Route 66". Like thousands, hundreds of thousands of other people, they go for illusory hope to sunny California, but even greater difficulties, hunger and death await them.
451° Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper ignites. Bradbury's philosophical dystopia paints a picture post-industrial society: this is the world of the future, in which all written publications are mercilessly destroyed by a special squad of firefighters, the possession of books is prosecuted by law, interactive television successfully serves to fool everyone, punitive psychiatry decisively deals with rare dissidents, and an electric dog comes out to hunt for incorrigible dissidents. Today, in Russia in 2016, the relevance of the novel published in 1953 (already 63 years ago!) is greater than ever - in different parts of the country, home-grown censors are raising their heads who seek to limit freedom of speech precisely by destroying and banning books.
Jack London's life was as romantic - at least when viewed through some lyrical lens - and eventful as his novels, and Martin Eden is considered the pinnacle of his work. This work is about a man who achieved recognition of his talent by society, but was deeply disappointed in the respectable bourgeois stratum that finally accepted him. In the words of the writer himself, this is “the tragedy of a loner trying to instill the truth in the world.” A truly timeless work and a hero whose feelings are understandable to readers on any continent and in any era.
One of the most difficult to understand, but at the same time incredibly interesting and multifaceted authors, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, mixing genres and always leaving the reader with uncertainty - what exactly did he just read, was it an appeal to himself through the pages of a book and What are we even talking about here? In “Breakfast for Champions,” the author surprisingly subtly and accurately destroys stereotypes of perception, showing us man and life on Earth with a detached look, looking as if from another planet, where they don’t know what an apple or a weapon is. The main character, writer Kilgore Trout, is both the author’s alter ego and his interlocutor; he is about to receive a literary award. At the same time, someone who reads his novel (the character, Dwayne Hoover, was played by Bruce Willis in the 1999 film adaptation) slowly goes crazy, taking everything written in it at face value and losing touch with reality - as he begins to doubt the reader is also in it.
In John Updike's first novel in the Rabbit series, Harry Engstrom - and this is precisely his nickname - is a young man for whom the rose-colored glasses of his youth have already been broken by the inexorable reality. He went from being the star of his high school basketball team to becoming a husband and father, forced to work in a supermarket to provide for his family. He is unable to come to terms with this and goes on the run. Updike and Kerouac seem to be talking about the same people, but in different tones - so those who have read the latter’s work “On the Road” will be interested in moving from beatnik literature to complex psychological prose, and those who haven’t read it will undoubtedly have a lot of fun switching their attention and diving even deeper into the same topic.
1. Truman Capote - "Summer Cruise"
Truman Capote is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, author of such bestsellers as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Other Voices, Other Rooms, In Cold Blood and The Meadow Harp. We bring to your attention the debut novel written by the twenty-year-old Capote, when he first arrived from New Orleans to New York, and for sixty years was considered lost. The manuscript for "Summer Cruise" surfaced at Sotheby's in 2004, and was first published in 2006. In this novel, Capote, with unsurpassed stylistic grace, describes the dramatic events in the life of high-society debutante Grady McNeil, who remains in New York for the summer while her parents sail to Europe. She falls in love with the parking lot attendant and flirts with her childhood friend, remembers her past hobbies and dances in fashionable dance halls...
2. Irving Shaw - "Lucy Crown"
The book includes one of the most famous novels by American prose writer and playwright Irwin Shaw, “Lucy Crown” (1956). Like the writer's other works - "Two Weeks in Another City", "Evening in Byzantium", "Rich Man, Poor Man" - this novel opens the reader to a world of fragile connections and complex, sometimes unpredictable relationships between people. The story about how one mistake can turn the whole life of a person and his loved ones upside down, about unappreciated and destroyed family happiness is told deceptively in simple language, amazes with the author's knowledge human psychology and invites the reader to reflection and empathy.
3. John Irving - "Men Not Her Life"
An undoubted classic modern literature The West and one of its undisputed leaders plunges the reader into a mirror labyrinth of reflections: fears from children's books once popular writer Ted Cole is suddenly overgrown with flesh, and now the fabulous mole man turns into a real maniac killer, so that almost forty years later Ruth Cole, the writer’s daughter, also a writer, collecting material for the novel, becomes a witness to his cruel crime. But first and foremost, Irving's novel is about love. The atmosphere of condensed sensuality, love without shores and restrictions fills its pages with a certain magnetic force, turning the reader into a participant in a magical action.
4. Kurt Vonnegut - "Mother Darkness"
A novel in which the great Vonnegut, with his characteristic dark and mischievous humor, explores inner world... a professional spy reflecting on his own direct participation in the destinies of the nation.
Writer and playwright Howard Campbell, recruited by American intelligence, is forced to play the role of an ardent Nazi - and gets a lot of pleasure from his cruel and dangerous masquerade.
He deliberately piles absurdity upon absurdity, but the more surreal and comical his Nazi “exploits” are, the more they trust him, the more more people listen to his opinion.
However, wars end in peace - and Campbell will have to live without the opportunity to prove his non-involvement in the crimes of Nazism...
5. Arthur Haley - "Final Diagnosis"
Why did Arthur Hailey's novels captivate the whole world? What made them classics of world fiction? Why, as soon as “Hotel” and “Airport” came out in our country, they were literally swept off the shelves, stolen from libraries, given to friends “in line” to read?
Very simple. The works of Arthur Haley are a kind of “slices of life”. Life at the airport, hotel, hospital, Wall Street. A closed space in which people live - with their joys and sorrows, ambitions and hopes, intrigues and passions. People work, fight, fall in love, break up, achieve success, break the law - that’s life. That's what Hayley's novels are like...
6. Jerome Salinger - "The Glass Saga"
"Jerome David Salinger's series of stories about the Glass family is a masterpiece American literature XX century, "a blank piece of paper instead of an explanation." Zen Buddhism and nonconformism in Salinger's books inspired more than one generation to rethink life and search for ideals.
Salinger loves the Glasses more than God loves them. He loves them too exclusively. Their invention became a hermit's hut for him. He loves them to the point that he is ready to limit himself as an artist."
7. Jack Kerouac - "Dharma Bums"
Jack Kerouac gave a voice to an entire generation in literature for his short life managed to write about 20 books of prose and poetry and became the most famous and controversial author of his time. Some branded him as a subverter of foundations, others considered him a classic modern culture, but from his books all beatniks and hipsters learned to write - to write not what you know, but what you see, firmly believing that the world itself will reveal its nature.
A celebration of the outback and the bustling metropolis, Buddhism and the San Francisco poetic revival, Dharma Bums is a jazz-improvised tale of the spiritual quest of a generation that believed in kindness and humility, wisdom and ecstasy; generation, the manifesto and bible of which was another Kerouac novel, “On the Road,” which brought the author worldwide fame and entered the golden fund of American classics.
8. Theodore Dreiser - "American Tragedy"
The novel "An American Tragedy" is the pinnacle of the work of the outstanding American writer Theodore Dreiser. He said: “No one creates tragedies - life creates them. Writers only depict them.” Dreiser managed to portray the tragedy of Clive Griffiths so talentedly that his story does not leave anyone indifferent and modern reader. A young man who has tasted all the charm of the life of the rich is so eager to establish himself in their society that he commits a crime for this.
9. John Steinbeck - "Cannery Row"
The inhabitants of a poor neighborhood in a small seaside town...
Fishermen and thieves, small traders and swindlers, "moths" and their sad and cynical "guardian angel" - a middle-aged doctor...
The heroes of the story cannot be called respectable; they do not get along well with the law. But it is impossible to resist the charm of these people.
Their adventures, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, under the pen of the great John Steinbeck, turn into a real saga about a Man - both sinful and holy, vile and ready for self-sacrifice, deceitful and sincere...
10. William Faulkner - "The Mansion"
"Mansion" - last book William Faulkner's trilogy "The Village", "The Town", "The Mansion", dedicated to the tragedy of the aristocracy of the American South, which was faced with a painful choice - to preserve former ideas of honor and fall into poverty, or to break with the past and join the ranks of nouveau riche businessmen making quick and not very clean money on progress.
The mansion in which Flem Snopes settles gives the title to the entire novel and becomes the place where the inevitable and terrible events, rocked Yoknapatawaw County.
“Sinlessness” became a real sensation last year: it is called Franzen’s most scandalous and most Russian novel. Reasoning about acute social problems, the totalitarian nature of the Internet, feminism and politics are intertwined with the deep, very personal story of one family.
A young girl named Pip's life is a complete mess: she doesn't know her father, can't pay off her student debt, doesn't know how to build relationships, and has a boring job. But her life changes dramatically when she becomes an assistant to hacker Andreas Wulff, who loves nothing more than to publicly reveal other people's secrets.
2. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Richard Papen remembers student years at a private college in Vermont: he and several of his comrades attended closed course eccentric teacher ancient culture. One prank of an elite circle of students ended in a murder, which only at first glance remained unpunished.
After the incident, other secrets of the heroes are revealed, which lead to new tragedies in their lives.
3. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Most famous novel Ellis is already considered modern classics. The main character is Patrick Bateman, a handsome, rich and seemingly intelligent young man from Wall Street. But behind the good looks and expensive suits lies greed, hatred and rage. At night he tortures and kills people in the most in sophisticated ways, without a system and without a plan.
4. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer
A touching story from the perspective of a 9-year-old boy Oscar. His father died in one of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. While examining his father's closet, Oscar finds a vase, and in it is a small envelope with the inscription "Black" and a key inside. Inspired and filled with curiosity, Oscar is ready to go around all the Blacks in New York to find the answer to the riddle. This is a story about overcoming bereavement, post-disaster New York, and human kindness.
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
“The Catcher in the Rye” about modern teenagers is what critics dubbed Stephen Chbosky’s book, which sold a million copies and was filmed by the author himself.
Charlie is a typical quiet person, a silent observer of what is happening, turns into high school. After recent nervous breakdown he closed in on himself. To overcome his inner feelings, he begins to write letters. Letters to a friend, unknown person- to the reader of this book. On the advice of his new comrade Pete, he tries to become “not a sponge, but a filter” - to live life to the fullest, and not watch her from the side.
6. The Hours, Michael Cunningham
The story of a day in the life three women from different eras from a Pulitzer Prize winner. The destinies of the British writer Virginia Woolf, the American housewife Laura from Los Angeles and the publishing editor Clarissa Vaughan, at first glance, are connected only by the book - the novel Mrs. Dalloway. But by the end it becomes clear that the lives and problems of the heroines, despite all the external differences, are the same.
7. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Nick and Amazing Amy - perfect couple. But on the day of the fifth anniversary, Amy disappears from the house - there are all traces of abduction. The whole city goes in search of the missing woman and sympathizes with Nick until Amy's diary falls into the hands of the police, because of which her husband becomes the main suspect in the murder. The main intrigue of the novel is who was the real victim in this situation.
Flynn's novel attracts with its unconventional view of modern marriage: partners marry beautiful projections of each other and then are very surprised when behind the invented image a living person is discovered, whom they do not know at all.
8. Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade, Kurt Vonnegut
The writer's difficult war experience is reflected in this novel. Memories of the bombing in Dresden are shown through the eyes of the absurd, timid soldier Billy Pilgrim - one of those foolish children who were thrown into a terrible war. But Vonnegut would not be himself if he had not also introduced an element of fantasy into the novel: either due to post-traumatic syndrome, or due to alien intervention, Pilgrim learned to travel in time.
Despite the fantastic nature of what is happening, the message of the novel is quite real and clear: Vonnegut ridicules stereotypes about “real men” and demonstrates the pointlessness of wars.
9. “Beloved,” Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison got Nobel Prize in literature for the fact that in “her novels full of dreams and poetry she revived an important aspect American reality" And Time magazine named the novel “Beloved” one of the 100 best books in English.
The main character is the slave Sethe, who, along with her children, escaped from her cruel masters and remained free for only 28 days. When the chase overtakes Sethe, she kills her daughter with her own hands - so that she does not know slavery and does not experience the same thing as her mother. The memory of the past and this terrible choice haunts Sethe all her life.
10. A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin
Fantasy epic about magical world The Seven Kingdoms, where the struggle for the Iron Throne continues, while a terrible winter approaches the entire continent. On this moment Five novels out of a planned seven have been published. The remaining two parts are awaited by both fans of the writer’s work and fans of “”, a series based on the saga that is breaking all popularity records.
Instructions
Possibly the first American writer to achieve world fame, became a poet and, at the same time, a founder detective genre Edgar Allan Poe. Being a deep mystic by nature, Edgar Allan Poe was not at all like an American. Perhaps that is why his work, not finding followers in the writer’s homeland, had noticeable influence on European literature modern era.
Great place The United States is occupied by adventure novels, which are based on the exploration of the continent and the relationship between the first settlers and the indigenous population. The largest representatives of this trend were James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote a lot and fascinatingly about the Indians and the clashes of American colonists with them, Mine Reed, whose novels masterfully combine love line and detective-adventure intrigue, and Jack London, who glorified the courage and courage of the pioneers of the harsh lands of Canada and Alaska.
One of the most remarkable American of the 19th century is the outstanding satirist Mark Twain. His works such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” are read with equal interest by both young and adult readers.
Henry James lived in Europe for many years, but did not cease to be an American writer. In his novels “The Wings of the Dove”, “The Golden Cup” and others, the writer showed Americans who are naive and simple-minded by nature, who often find themselves victims of the intrigues of insidious Europeans.
Standing apart in the American 19th century is the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose anti-racist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin contributed greatly to the liberation of blacks.
The first half of the 20th century could be called the American Renaissance. At this time, such wonderful authors as Theodore Dreiser, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway created their works. Dreiser's first novel, “Sister Carrie,” in which the heroine achieves success at the cost of losing her best human qualities, initially seemed immoral to many. Based on a crime chronicle, the novel "An American Tragedy" turned into a story of a crash. American dream».
The works of the king of the “Jazz Age” (a term coined by himself) Francis Scott Fitzgerald are largely based on autobiographical motifs. First of all, this applies to the magnificent novel “Tender is the Night,” where the writer told the story of his complex and painful relationship with his wife Zelda. Fitzgerald showed the collapse of the “American Dream” in famous novel"The Great Gatsby".
A tough and courageous perception of reality distinguishes creativity Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway. Among the most outstanding works writer - the novels “A Farewell to Arms!”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the story “The Old Man and the Sea”.
