LitQueuelitqueue

After

True History of the Kelly Gang

Peter Carey2000

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Four Treasures of the Sky

    Jenny Tinghui Zhang2022

    A girl kidnapped from China is trafficked to the American West in the 1880s. She assumes multiple identities to survive racial violence.

    propulsive → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

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.

    propulsive → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    propulsive → playful

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    propulsive → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • An Offer From a Gentleman

    Julia Quinn2001

    The illegitimate daughter of an earl works as a servant for her stepmother. She sneaks into a masquerade ball and meets Benedict Bridgerton.

    propulsive → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Rich People Problems

    Kevin Kwan2017

    An extended family gathers in Singapore as their matriarch lies dying. They scheme against one another to inherit a massive estate.

    propulsive → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Montana

    Debbie Macomber1997

    A single mother moves to her grandfather's Montana ranch and falls for a mysterious farmhand while investigating his past.

    propulsive → warm, still western

    pace-1·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.

    propulsive → 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.

    Same propulsive register

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    propulsive → wry, still epistolary

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

propulsive → elegiac, still historical fiction

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    propulsive → playful

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    propulsive → clinical

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    propulsive → bleak

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Confessions of Nat Turner

    William Styron1967

    A fictionalized confession of the leader of an 1831 slave revolt while he awaits execution in a Virginia jail cell.

    propulsive → bleak, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    propulsive → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Crossing

    Cormac McCarthy1994

    A teenager makes three trips between New Mexico and Mexico, starting with an attempt to return a trapped wolf to the wild. The prose is dense.

    propulsive → elegiac, still western

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1