The best living American novelist?

I think Joyce Carol Oates or Stephen King would be contenders merely because of their prodigious output.

For more "literary" authors, I'd say either Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen/Michael Chabon (they are interchangeable in my mind) would be on the short list.

DeLillo is SO BORING and Pynchon is nearly unreadable.

I don't think "most prodigious" means the same thing as "best."

Chabon.

Zadie Smith lives part of the year now in the US, but almost no one considers her an American author. She writes almost entirely about the UK where she was born and raised.

Joyce Carol Oates is far from the best living novelist.

I'd go with Donna Tartt. Or Tom Perrotta. Or Marilynne Robinson.

Don DeLillo, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Michael Chabon.

She's hardly fashionable, but if the "best" means both critically acclaimed and likely still to be read decades from now, Anne Tyler.

Lauren Groff

Fuck Donna Tartt and that cutting Goldfinch excrement!

CUNTING^^^

Cormac McCarthy

Felicia Gallant!

James Patterson is genius. I can't imagine how he continually puts out multiple masterpieces of spine chilling novels every year.

I vote for DeLillo. His early books up to and including Underworld were great--I read almost all of them. He stopped writing serious books after Underworld ('97 I think) but before that, there was nobody quite like him. Pynchon is great too in his own way but most of his books are quite unreadable (Gravity's Rainbow is impenetrable).

Not a popular opinion - but I think Jonathan Franzens books are genius. Well written and insightful about modern life. David Foster Wallace will probably be known as the great Gen X writer - in part because he died young after so few books. And they are impressive - just not enjoyable. Feel similarly about Delillo - I can appreciate the genius but I don’t enjoy it or feel affected - nor does it leave a lasting impact. Franzen did.

Much of it depends on what gets taught at colleges and universities. I know few people who read "Gravity's Rainbow" for fun, but it gets taught quite a bit, and so its reputation persists--like "Ulysses."

Have to agree with R15. DeLillo has always left me cold.

Anne Tyler and Cormac McCarthy.

Bret Easton Ellis

McCarthy reigns supreme. Maybe deLillo or Richard Ford for second. Marilynne Robinson is superb as well.

Barbara Thorndyke

Jay McInerney

Richard Russo

Lionel Shriver

Another vote for Bret Easton Ellis. He may be a deplorable but he is, or was at least, a great writer

Joan Didion, Larry McMurtry...

Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon' is my favourite book, followed by DeLillo's 'White Noise' (if anyone thinks that DeLillo is boring and/or leaves them unmoved then they can't have read the latter anytime in the recent past) but, whilst both are still alive, their best years are now well behind them. Cormac McCarthy is THE quintessentially American mythic novelist, post-Faulkner, so perhaps, like many others, I'd opt for him.

Cormac McCarthy, definitely

Denis Johnson, but he died two years ago

Don DeLillo. Cormac McCarthy. Can't think of any others....

Annie Proulx.

I love, love, love Don DeLillo, yet I understand why he leaves some cold. His books are more about ideas than they are characters. But his writing is stylish and beautiful, like a poet’s, and he has a way of summoning the sublime, the ineffable. Plus he was very prescient about the corrosive effects of mass media and the rise of terrorism.

I read White Noise right after college and loved it but struggled with other of his books. So I started with his first, Americana, and read each in succession. And you learn how to read his work. White Noise, Libra and Underworld are all masterpieces. Mao II is close. The Names is beautiful and mysterious. Running Dog is a decadent spy novel that’s obsessed with Hitler and Players features a doomed gay couple. Great Jones Street is dreamlike and haunting, End Zone is like Catch 22, and Ratner’s Star is ... hard to describe.

I love him so much and wish he’d get a Nobel.

Richard Ford was a professor of mine at university, and he is incredibly smart and dynamic. I love his writing, but I don't love his characters. Still, he gets my vote.

Salvatore Scibona, although he's only written two novels -- tens years apart. He's also one of the best who nobody has heard of.

[quote] I think Joyce Carol Oates or Stephen King would be contenders merely because of their prodigious output.

By that logic, McDonald's would be a contender for best US restaurant.

Richard Ford is great. Lorrie Moore is more known for short stories but is surely one of the very best fiction writers.

I'm definitely going to try Anne Tyler based on comments in this thread. I'd have to agree with mentions of Marilynn Robinson. Gilead is a masterpiece of character work. I'd also make a pitch for James Carlos Blake. I suppose some might find him Cormac McCarthy-lite, especially if one were to compare Blood Meridian to In the Rogue Blood, but I find him very compelling.

[quote]I'm definitely going to try Anne Tyler based on comments in this thread.

You can start with "The Accidental Tourist." If it's not to your taste you probably won't like the others.

Anne Tyler gets my vote.

Sounds like I need to read some Anne Tyler.

(1) Richard Price not only as an impressive novelist but screenwriter as well ("The Night Of," "The Deuce," "The Wire").

(2) Carl Hiaasen, who did for Florida what...

...(3) Larry McMurtry did for the state of Texas.

I’m going to have to go with E.L James. She put millions of fat fraus in heat. Poor stupid straight men.

My second choice is Donald Trump Jr.

Sorry but if you can by an author's paperbacks in the grocery store they aren't that good.

Sorry, but if you cannot distinguish "by" from "buy" you don't get to judge.

^^for R42

R43 is a cunt

He outsources them R13

It's like a factory

I will offer three recent, brilliant novels by American women that rival anything above:

Lauren Groff/Fates and Furies (but I also loved The Monsters of Templeton) Karen Joy Fowler/We are All Completely Beside Ourselves Rachel Kushner/The Mars Room, or The Flamethrowers.

Okay that was four. Or five.

No one has time for novels anymore.

Only retired geriatrics and the unemployed have time to read them.

I love Anne Tyler. She has a chapter in Saint Maybe that deals with getting a water ring out of a table. Anyone that can make that compelling is a master writer. She succeeds.

[quote] No one has time for novels anymore.

And yet here you are, wasting time on a chat forum. Go figure!

Does anyone still read Anne Tyler? She was a very nice lady and a good commercial middle-brow writer. But she will go the way of Edna Ferber---in histories of American literature but rarely read or studied.

Joyce Carol. Oates

Right now....John Bolton.

John Irving

Paul Auster

This thread needs to be split between Female Best living American novelists and Male Best living American novelists.

No to Jonathan Franzen. He can write some beautiful and funny set pieces in his novels but there’s a plot flaw in nearly every book. The plot engine he uses to drive his books are creaky. I’m reading Martin Amis’ The Information and it’s hilariously funny. He’s a Brit but lives in Brooklyn. For best living US novelist Colson Whitehead should be in that list.

Lucy Ellman lives in Scotland but she is as American as tarte tartin. Colson Whitehead is another force to be reckoned with. Karen Groff is an excellent stylist but not in the same league.

Lucy Ellman lives in Scotland but she is as American as tarte tartin. Colson Whitehead is another force to be reckoned with. Karen Groff is an excellent stylist but not in the same league.

Yikes. Meant to say Lauren Groff. And sorry for the double post.

[quote] Lucy Ellman lives in Scotland but she is as American as tarte tartin.

Mary!

I really wanted to list James Salter, only to find out he passed away five years ago.

Lionel Shriver.

Salvatore Scibona. Two brilliant novels. His writing is art.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't like Colson Whitehead and am somewhat confounded he won a Pulitzer for two novels in a row. I thought "The Underground Railroad" was vastly overrated, the plot was confusing and the whole "it's an actual railroad" conceit felt unnecessary and not cleverly used. That said I have not read "The Nickel Boys" and I suppose I will. But I also read his zombie book "Zone One" and found that not very interesting.

Toni Morrison would have sat atop this list but she's gone now. Her first five novels are all mind-blowing. Among Black authors writing now, Edward Jones, Charles Johnson and Darryl Pinckney have all written beautiful novels, but have not been as prolific as some of their contemporaries (or, perhaps, had as many publishing opportunities). Jesmyn Ward is a very talented up and comer. I have been meaning to read "An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones.

Richard Powers and Jane Hamilton.

Ron Hansen is most excellent.

R53: Are you insinuating the Bolton book is a work of fiction?

Another vote for Cormac McCarthy.

Louise Erdrich

John Irving