Go as a River

Fruit of the Drunken Tree

Ingrid Rojas Contreras2018

A sheltered girl in 1990s Bogotá befriends her family's new teenage maid as the violence of the Escobar era encroaches on their home.

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

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.

elegiac → sardonic, still historical fiction

pace0·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.

elegiac → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → dreamlike

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

This Girl

Colleen Hoover2013

A husband retells the story of his early relationship to his wife. It uses dual timelines to revisit events from the first book in the series.

elegiac → earnest

pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

The Score

Elle Kennedy2016

A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.

elegiac → playful

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

I Capture the Castle

Dodie Smith1948

A teenager journals about her eccentric, impoverished family living in a ruined castle. Two wealthy American brothers arrive and change their lives.

pace0·prose-1·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.

elegiac → sardonic

pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

elegiac → wry

pace+2·prose-2·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.

Same elegiac register, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose0·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.

elegiac → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → clinical

pace-1·prose+1·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.

elegiac → meditative, still historical fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

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.

Same elegiac register, still historical fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

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.

Same elegiac register, still historical fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+2