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After

Family Meal

Bryan Washington2023

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Cleopatra and Frankenstein

    Coco Mellors2022

    A young British artist and an older American businessman marry impulsively in New York. The story follows their social circle as the marriage fails.

    tender → elegiac, still contemporary

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • To the Lighthouse

    Virginia Woolf1927

    A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Sea

    John Banville2005

    A widower returns to a coastal resort to reflect on a childhood summer and his wife's death. The narrator's memory is fluid and dense.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Wild Iris Ridge

    RaeAnne Thayne2014

    Lucy Drake returns to her small hometown to renovate an inheritance and encounters the widowed husband of her late best friend.

    tender → warm, still contemporary

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Love Bites

    Lynsay Sands2004

    A vampire turns a coroner into an immortal to save her life after an accident. They navigate their new bond while being pursued by others.

    tender → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Score

    Elle Kennedy2016

    A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.

    tender → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tender → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • Moby Dick

    Herman Melville1851

    A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

    tender → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • To the Lighthouse

    Virginia Woolf1927

    A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The story of a brief marriage

    Anuk Arudpragasam2016

    Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

    tender → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

  • A Distant Shore

    Caryl Phillips2003

    A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

    tender → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • The Nickel Boys

    Colson Whitehead2019

    A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2