The Round House

The Folding Star

Alan Hollinghurst1994

An English tutor in a Flemish city becomes obsessed with his teenage student. He pursues other men while fixating on the boy.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Don Quixote

Kathy Acker1986

A woman undergoes an abortion and adopts the persona of Don Quixote to pursue a quest in a fragmented, postmodern landscape.

elegiac → sardonic

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

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

elegiac → bleak

pace-1·prose+1·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

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

SANTA CRUISE

Mary Higgins Clark2006

Two detectives investigate a disappearance and a reported ghost sighting on a luxury cruise ship.

elegiac → playful, still mystery

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

A Pedigree To Die For

Laurien Berenson1995

A woman investigates the death of her uncle and the disappearance of a prize-winning poodle. She navigates the world of professional dog breeding.

elegiac → playful

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

The Duke and I

Julia Quinn2000

A duke and a debutante enter a fake courtship to avoid social pressure. They navigate Regency London's marriage market while hiding their deal.

elegiac → playful

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Tell No One

Harlan Coben2000

A widower receives an email from his wife eight years after her murder. He flees the FBI to discover if she is still alive.

elegiac → propulsive, still mystery

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Ten Big Ones

Janet Evanovich2004

Stephanie Plum witnesses a gang hit and becomes a target herself. She balances the threat with her ongoing romantic indecision.

elegiac → playful, still mystery

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Private Vegas

James Patterson2015

Jack Morgan investigates a man who trains women to become killers in Las Vegas. The story follows multiple perspectives in short chapters.

elegiac → propulsive, still mystery

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 literary fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Moby Dick

Herman Melville1851

A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

elegiac → meditative, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf1927

A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

Same elegiac register, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

A Distant Shore

Caryl Phillips2003

A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

elegiac → bleak, still literary fiction

pace0·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.

elegiac → bleak, still literary fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead2019

A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

Same elegiac register, still literary fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak+1