I received an excellent suggestion from one of our readers to make a list of worthwhile American novels. I’m going to group my recommendations according to the reasons for why I recommend them. Of course, the overarching reason is that I absolutely adore all of these books. There are some undisputable classics of American literature that I personally did not fall in love with. I will not recommend them but not because you shouldn’t be reading them There is nothing I can say about them that would be worthwhile, so what’s the point of me talking about them? The best book recommendations come from love, not obligation.
The first group of my recommendations is going to contain the great regional novels. It doesn’t mean, of course, that they’re only relevant for the specific regions where they’re set. But the different regions of America are so fascinating that they have given rise to novels that depict the specifics of the regional culture. The very first novel on my list is:
William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
It is, in my opinion, the greatest American novel of the 20th century. I use the word “American” here in the broadest sense. Many courses on Latin American literature start with Absalom, Absalom! because this novel is the foundation of the Latin American literature written since then. You can’t really understand anything written between Mississippi and the South Pole without knowing and understanding Faulkner.
Faulkner is the writer of the American South not only as a geographic place but as a way of being, as a manner of life. It’s devastating and beautiful, and once you really get it, you will never be able to leave it completely.
I warn you, though, that Faulkner is a high modernist author. He was a genius, far ahead of his times. He invented much of what today’s literature is. Absalom, Absalom! is not a realist novel. You can’t be a passive consumer of this type of art. You will have to participate actively in its creation. Modernity requires an enormous amount of agency from every human being. Modernist art doesn’t allow you to be a passive consumer because passive consumers get eaten alive in the modern world. Reading modernist literature helps you develop the kind of subjectivity that makes life in the modern world more comfortable for you. Faulkner’s novel disturbs you, confuses you, and makes you work hard to understand it. But it trains you up to be comfortable in modernity.
Please don’t worry, though. The next two novels on the regional list are going to be pure realism.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’ve never been able to get through Absalom, though I like other stuff by Faulkner. Parts of Sound and the Fury are seared into my brain. “A Rose For Emily” is a great story.
When they put Faulkner on a postage stamp, I read a funny article about the brief period when Faulkner worked for the post office. He opened everyone’s mail, read the magazines and books he was supposed to deliver, and took many naps.
When Faulkner went through his own mail, he would hold each envelope up to the light. If it looked like it contained a check, he would open it. All the other letters went straight into the trash unopened.
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