LitQueuelitqueue

After

No Country for Young Men

Julia O'Faolain1980

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Man Who Saw Everything

    Deborah Levy2019

    A historian travels to 1988 East Berlin while his memories of a car accident and his girlfriend begin to blur and repeat.

    bleak → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak-2

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • This Other Eden

    Paul Harding2023

    A multiracial community on a small island off the coast of Maine faces forced displacement by state officials in the early 20th century.

    bleak → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    Same bleak register, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·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.

    bleak → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • On Dublin Street

    Samantha Young2012

    An American woman in Scotland enters a sex-only arrangement with her roommate's brother to avoid emotional intimacy. It is a contemporary romance.

    bleak → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Night Pleasures

    Sherrilyn Kenyon2002

    An immortal warrior and a skeptical accountant are handcuffed together while being hunted by supernatural predators.

    bleak → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Honeysuckle Summer

    Sherryl Woods2010

    A woman with severe anxiety and agoraphobia after an abusive marriage finds support from a local deputy. He helps her re-enter the world.

    bleak → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

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.

    bleak → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    bleak → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    bleak → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3

Slower

bleak → elegiac, still historical fiction

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.

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1

  • Lila

    Marilynne Robinson2014

    A woman with a traumatic, nomadic past settles in a small Iowa town and marries a minister. She struggles to reconcile her history with his faith.

    bleak → tender, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

  • Rhine Journey

    Ann Schlee1981

    A middle-aged woman travels by steamer down the Rhine in 1851. She observes her family and internalizes a chance encounter with a man from her past.

    bleak → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1