Best Debut Novels

[sixsmith]

I'm currently reading Iris Murdoch's "Under the Net" which is a fair to middling novel. However, it got me thinking about novelists whose first book has been exceptional (and in some cases set a mark that the author has been unable to reach again)

A list of the best first novels would have to include:

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger
V - Thomas Pynchon
Journey to the end of the Night - Louis Ferdinand Celine


Thoughts??

[Gustavo L.]

I’d include Ernesto Sabato’s “The Tunnel”, which was surpassed by his “On Heroes and Tombs” but stills a masterpiece.

[promtbr]

I’d include Ernesto Sabato’s “The Tunnel”, which was surpassed by his “On Heroes and Tombs” but stills a masterpiece.

Both of which I am desperately trying to find in translation (not costing a fortune :D)

Great thread.... off the top of my head, I would throw out:

The Tin Drum-- Gunter Grass

One Hundred Years of Solitude-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Frost-- Thomas Bernhard

[sixsmith]

Both of which I am desperately trying to find in translation (not costing a fortune :D)

Me too. Have heard great things.

[semi-fly]

Any thoughts on the following as debut novels:

- Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers
- Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility
- Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

Off topic: It only took me a few minutes to find The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato (in English - ISBN: 0345373774) for a reasonable price. Of course you may not have places like half.com or allbookstores.com as an option, but if you do they have a number of used copies from $5.00USD to $28.00USD

[The Comedian]

I'll add Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises into this group -- I think In Our Time was published first, however. But In Our Time is not really a novel.

[promtbr]

I'll add Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises into this group -- I think In Our Time was published first, however. But In Our Time is not really a novel.

I was going to list that too, but evidently it was written after the Novella, Torrents of Spring (which I have never heard of)

[The Comedian]

I was going to list that too, but evidently it was written after the Novella, Torrents of Spring (which I have never heard of)

I guess that makes two of us. :)

[Gustavo L.]

"In the Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco is quite interesting.

And how could I forget this? “The Devil to Pay in the Backlands” by Guimarães Rosa is one of the greatest novels ever written in Portuguese. Even if I’m sure if it works well in translation I’d say it’s worth a try.

[Behemoth]

Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain is a gorgeous debut, i'd heartily recommend it.