LitQueuelitqueue

After

Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

5 of 6 directions open — nothing denser

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Woman Upstairs

    Claire Messud2013

    A schoolteacher becomes obsessed with the family of one of her students. She documents her growing resentment and their eventual betrayal.

    dreamlike → sardonic, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak0

To recover

dreamlike → playful

3 more ↓

  • Mile High

    Liz Tomforde2023

    A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

    pace+1·prose-3·bleak-2

  • Behind the Net

    Stephanie Archer2024

    A former musician becomes the live-in assistant for a professional hockey goalie she knew in high school.

    pace+1·prose-3·bleak-2

  • She Went All the Way

    Meg Cabot2002

    A screenwriter and an actor survive a helicopter crash in the Alaskan wilderness and must hike to safety while being pursued by a killer.

    pace+1·prose-3·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

    A Soviet security officer investigates a serial killer in a state that officially claims murder does not exist.

    dreamlike → tense

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

  • 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.

    dreamlike → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-3·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    dreamlike → wry

    pace+2·prose-3·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Nausea

    Jean-Paul. Satre1969

    A historian living in a French port town becomes overwhelmed by the physical realization of his own existence and the world's indifference.

    dreamlike → meditative, still philosophical fiction

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak0

  • February

    Lisa Moore2009

    A widow in Newfoundland moves between her quiet daily routines and the memory of her husband's death on a sunken oil rig decades earlier.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak0

  • The Wilderness

    Samantha Harvey2009

    An architect with Alzheimer's attempts to reconstruct his life story. The narrative fragments as his memory and sense of time dissolve.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Lighthouse

    Alison Moore2012

    A recently separated man takes a walking tour of Germany while reflecting on his childhood abandonment and his failing marriage.

    dreamlike → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+1

  • The White Hotel

    D. M. Thomas1981

    A woman's life is told through poems, a Freudian case study, and a narrative. It moves from her sexual fantasies to her death in the Holocaust.

    Same dreamlike register, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+1

  • My Dark Vanessa

    Kate Elizabeth Russell2020

    Vanessa reflects on her teenage relationship with a teacher after he is accused of abuse. The narrative shifts between 2000 and 2017.

    dreamlike → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1