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After

The Glorious Heresies

Lisa McInerney2015

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Pop. 1280

    Jim Thompson1984

    A corrupt sheriff in a small 1910s town maintains order through murder and manipulation. He narrates his crimes with a detached, joking air.

    Same sardonic register, still crime

    pace0·prose-1·bleak0

Denser prose

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.

    sardonic → playful

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

  • The Sound and the Fury

    William Faulkner1929

    The decline of a Southern family told through four perspectives, including a non-linear stream of consciousness from a man with a disability.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace-1·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.

    sardonic → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • And One Last Thing...

    Molly Harper2010

    After a public divorce, a woman moves to a small town to start over and finds herself pursued by a local deputy.

    sardonic → wry

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Fast & loose

    Stuart Woods2017

    Wealthy investigator Stone Barrington deals with a hostile family after a boating accident. He manages legal and financial assets in Maine.

    sardonic → playful, still crime

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Perfection

    R.L. Mathewson2011

    A woman tries to ignore her neighbor, a man with a massive appetite who constantly steals her food. They bicker until a relationship forms.

    sardonic → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Dial A for Aunties

    Jesse Q. Sutanto2021

    A photographer accidentally kills her blind date. Her mother and aunties help hide the body during a massive luxury wedding.

    sardonic → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Gone

    James Patterson2013

    A drug lord escapes prison and hunts Detective Michael Bennett, who is hiding in the California woods with his ten children.

    sardonic → propulsive, still crime

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Extreme Prey

    John Sandford2016

    While working on a presidential campaign, Lucas Davenport tracks an armed man planning to assassinate the governor.

    sardonic → propulsive, still crime

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

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-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.

    sardonic → bleak

    pace-2·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-2·prose0·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Keepers of Truth

    Michael Collins2000

    A local reporter in a dying Indiana town investigates a murder at the last local factory. He documents the decay of his family and his community.

    sardonic → bleak, still noir

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • The North Water

    Ian McGuire2016

    A disgraced surgeon joins a whaling expedition where a psychopathic harpooner commits a murder. The crew becomes trapped in the Arctic ice.

    sardonic → cold, still noir

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • Gone, Baby, Gone

    Dennis Lehane1998

    Private investigators search for a missing four-year-old girl in Boston. They navigate a criminal underworld and face a final moral choice.

    sardonic → bleak, still crime

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+1