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After

Swimming Home

Deborah Levy2011

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • 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.

    tense → sardonic, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Milkman

    Anna Burns2018

    An unnamed 18-year-old girl is stalked by an older paramilitary figure in 1970s Northern Ireland. The prose uses long, circuitous sentences.

    Same tense register, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Conservationist

    Nadine Gordimer1974

    A wealthy white industrialist buys a farm outside Johannesburg. He struggles to maintain control over the land and the people on it.

    tense → cold, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Study for Obedience

    Sarah Bernstein2023

    A woman moves to a remote northern country to care for her brother. The local community grows hostile as she observes them.

    tense → cold, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Big Magic

    Elizabeth Gilbert2015

    The author shares her philosophy on the creative process through personal anecdotes. It focuses on overcoming fear and pursuing curiosity.

    tense → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Year zero

    Reid, Robert2012

    Aliens discover that Earth's music is the best in the galaxy and they owe humanity trillions in copyright fines.

    tense → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Redshirts

    John Scalzi2012

    Low-ranking crew members on a starship realize they are disposable characters in a sci-fi television show. They attempt to escape their fate.

    tense → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

    tense → sardonic

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    tense → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tense → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tense → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose0·bleak0

  • Study for Obedience

    Sarah Bernstein2023

    A woman moves to a remote northern country to care for her brother. The local community grows hostile as she observes them.

    tense → cold, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Next Big Thing

    Anita Brookner2002

    A seventy-three-year-old man in London contemplates his few remaining options for the future. He considers travel, marriage, and his isolation.

    tense → meditative, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose0·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.

    tense → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    tense → dreamlike, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    tense → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1