According to Queeney

Booth

Karen Joy Fowler2022

The story of the Booth family over several decades. It follows the siblings of John Wilkes Booth leading up to the Lincoln assassination.

sardonic → elegiac, still biographical fiction

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A Brief History of Seven Killings

Marlon James2014

A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.

sardonic → propulsive, still historical fiction

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Gravity's Rainbow

Thomas Pynchon1973

During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

Same sardonic register, still historical fiction

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The Wake

Paul Kingsnorth2014

A landowner in 1066 leads a guerrilla resistance against Norman invaders. The story is written in a modified version of Old English.

sardonic → bleak, still historical fiction

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This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

sardonic → tense

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Ready Player One

Ernest Cline2008

A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Real Murders

Charlaine Harris1990

A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

sardonic → wry

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Candide

Voltaire

A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

Same sardonic register

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The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

sardonic → propulsive

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The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

sardonic → wry

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Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

sardonic → playful

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Umbrella

Will Self2013

A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

sardonic → clinical

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Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

sardonic → bleak

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The Confessions of Nat Turner

William Styron1967

A fictionalized confession of the leader of an 1831 slave revolt while he awaits execution in a Virginia jail cell.

sardonic → bleak, still historical fiction

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The Known World

Edward P. Jones2003

A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

sardonic → meditative, still historical fiction

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A Long Long Way

Sebastian Barry2005

A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

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