The Orphan Master's Son

Good Behaviour

Molly Keane1981

A woman recalls her youth in an Anglo-Irish manor, where the strict social codes of the gentry mask cruelty and financial ruin.

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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.

Same sardonic register, still historical fiction

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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.

sardonic → playful

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Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

sardonic → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

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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.

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Behind the Net

Stephanie Archer2024

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

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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.

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The President Is Missing

Bill Clinton2018

The U.S. President goes underground to stop a cyberattack that threatens to wipe out the nation's electrical and financial infrastructure.

sardonic → propulsive, still political thriller

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Transfer of Power

Vince Flynn1999

Terrorists seize the White House and take hostages. CIA operative Mitch Rapp infiltrates the building alone to rescue the survivors.

sardonic → propulsive, still political thriller

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Child 44

Tom Rob Smith2008

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

sardonic → tense

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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-2·prose0·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.

sardonic → playful

pace-2·prose+1·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.

sardonic → tender, still historical fiction

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The Known World

Edward P. Jones2003

A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

sardonic → meditative, still historical fiction

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A Long Long Way

Sebastian Barry2005

A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

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Brotherless Night

V. V. Ganeshananthan2023

A young woman in Sri Lanka tries to study medicine while her brothers join militant groups during the civil war. It covers a decade of conflict.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

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