American Dirt

At All Costs (Gemstar)

John Gilstrap1998

A family on the run for fourteen years flees an FBI manhunt to return to the scene of the crime and prove their innocence.

propulsive → tense, still thriller

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Beloved

Toni Morrison1987

A mother in post-Civil War Ohio is haunted by the ghost of the daughter she killed to spare from slavery. The prose is dense and non-linear.

propulsive → elegiac

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

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.

propulsive → sardonic

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

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.

Same propulsive register

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown2009

Symbologist Robert Langdon follows a trail of Masonic puzzles through Washington D.C. monuments to save his kidnapped mentor.

Same propulsive register, still thriller

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

Sea of Greed

Clive Cussler2018

Kurt Austin investigates the destruction of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The trail leads to a billionaire with a plan to end the oil age.

Same propulsive register, still thriller

pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

The Chef

James Patterson2019

A New Orleans police detective who moonlights as a food truck chef is framed for murder. He must clear his name while uncovering a conspiracy.

Same propulsive register, still thriller

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

Adrenaline

Jeff Abbott2010

A CIA agent’s life is destroyed when his wife warns him of a bombing and then vanishes. He must find her while being interrogated as a suspect.

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

The October List

Jeffery Deaver2013

The chapters are told in reverse chronological order, starting with the climax and moving backward to explain a kidnapping.

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Missing

James Patterson2015

A private investigator in Sydney searches for a missing CEO whose digital and physical footprint has been erased. The search becomes a race.

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

propulsive → clinical

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

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

propulsive → bleak

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje1992

Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

propulsive → elegiac

pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood2003

A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.

propulsive → sardonic

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara2015

Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

propulsive → bleak

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut1969

Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.

propulsive → sardonic

pace0·prose0·bleak+1