LitQueuelitqueue

After

Beyond Black

Hilary Mantel2005

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same sardonic register

1 more ↓

  • Slow Man

    J. M. Coetzee2005

    After losing a leg in an accident, Paul Rayment falls for his nurse. The narrative shifts when a famous author enters the story to direct his life.

    pace0·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.

    Same sardonic register

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

  • 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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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-1·prose+1·bleak-1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Artemis

    Andy Weir2017

    A porter and smuggler on a lunar colony takes a high-stakes sabotage job to pay off a debt. She uses technical knowledge to solve problems.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • 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.

    sardonic → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Night Pleasures

    Sherrilyn Kenyon2002

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

    sardonic → playful

    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.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+2·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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    sardonic → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·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.

    sardonic → clinical

    pace-1·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.

    sardonic → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Heavier

sardonic → bleak

3 more ↓

  • Oryx and Crake

    Margaret Atwood2003

    A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • A Little Life

    Hanya Yanagihara2015

    Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • Slaughterhouse-Five

    Kurt Vonnegut1969

    Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1