LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer1979

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Kingmaker's Daughter

    Philippa Gregory2012

    The daughters of the Earl of Warwick navigate the court of Edward IV as their father uses their marriages to manipulate the English throne.

    clinical → tense, still biographical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    clinical → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak-1

  • 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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    clinical → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-2

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Two for the dough

    Janet Evanovich1996

    An inexperienced bounty hunter tracks a man who jumped bail for shooting his friend. She competes with a vice cop to find him first.

    clinical → playful

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

  • Better Off Dead

    Lee Child2021

    Jack Reacher investigates a staged car crash in Arizona and infiltrates a dangerous local crew to find a missing woman.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

  • Death by Darjeeling

    Laura Childs2001

    Theodosia Browning hosts a tea party where a guest is poisoned. She must find the killer among the local socialites of Charleston.

    clinical → warm

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

    Bill O'Reilly

    A minute-by-minute narrative of John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent manhunt for the conspirators.

    clinical → propulsive, still true crime

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

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

    clinical → tense

    pace+2·prose0·bleak-1

  • 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.

    clinical → sardonic

    pace+2·prose0·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    Same clinical register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    clinical → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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.

    clinical → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1