Modern American writers

[doowoop]

I'm not familiar with modern American literature. Who According to your the most interesting writers of America? Thank you.:blush:

[breathtest]

I've posted it on another thread recently, but Cormac McCarthy is a great living American writer. His prose is the most beautiful of modern times, I think, and his novels have so much feeling in them.

[doowoop]

Thank you. I only know the name of Charles Bukowski. Who else? I want to know more.

[Alexander III]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is arguably the best living american writer, right now, he is probably one of the greatest novelists of the last century; truly amazing prose style. I would definitely recommend him.

[mortalterror]

Marquez is Colombian.

[Alexander III]

Marquez is Colombian.

Which is in america...

[stlukesguild]

Of course it is quite likely that the OP intended to denote writers from the USA by the term "American". I have heard others suggest that when the individual from the US refers to himself/herself as an "American" there is a sort of prejudice involved ignoring the fact that the whole Western Hemisphere is "American": North, South, and Central. The reality, however, is that there is no other easy term we might adopt for ourselves. An individual from the Federal Republic of Brazil is simply "Brazilian". Someone from the Argentine Republic is "Argentinean". Someone from the Republic of Chile is "Chilean". What other term can the individual from The United States of America adopt but "American"? USAer?:shocked: United Statsean?:nonod:

Returning to the OP... what period are you speaking of by the term "Modern" (which can be even more ambiguous than "American" denoting the period known historically as Modernism c. 1880-1945). Or do you mean contemporary/living or recently deceased writers?

[JCamilo]

The truth, the first name of Brazil after republic, was United States of Brazil. Guess why :D

[G L Wilson]

I'm not familiar with modern American literature. Who According to your the most interesting writers of America? Thank you.:blush:

Chuck Palahnuik and Kinky Friedman.

[sixsmith]

I surmise that the OP is asking about living/recently deceased authors and that by 'most interesting', he or she means 'best'.

Saul Bellow: Herzog
Don DeLillo: White Noise
Philip Roth: Sabbath's Theatre, The Counterlife.
Richard Ford: The Bascombe Books
David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow
Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke
Cormac McCarthy: Suttree

[TheChilly]

So far, I'm digging Don DeLillo. Denis Johnson is a bit of a challenge for me (at least "Tree of Smoke" is a marginally easier read than "Already Dead: A California Gothic" was).

[ChicagoReader]

Cormac is my favorite living American (USA) author. In particular, The Road, Blood Meridian, and Suttree.

[Venerable Bede]

I have to agree with everyone who has mentioned Cormac McCarthy. He is one of the most talented authors still living that I've read.

[doowoop]

Thanks to all! Have already make a selection of books on your list. I like Marquez and F. Roth too. Marquez is not the U.S. writer. I also want to know the modern American poets.

Stlukesguild you're right. Asking, I mean the writers of the United States. And that relates to the period, then I am interested in the second half of 20 century and our time.

[stlukesguild]

OK... now that we have clarified things:

Poetry:

Elizabeth Bishop
John Berryman
Robert Lowell
Theodore Roethke
Robert Duncan
Richard Wilbur
Richard Howard
A.R. Ammons
John Ashbery
Anthony Hecht
Charles Simic
James Merrill
W.S. Merwin
Allen Ginsberg
James Wright
Charles Olson
Mark Strand
Charles Wright
Amy Clampitt
John Hollander
Conrad Aiken
Randall Jarrell
Keneth Rexroth
Robinson Jeffers
Archibald MacLeish
Kenneth Patchen
C.K. Williams
John Logan
David Shapiro
Dana Gioia
Galway Kinnell
Jonathan Aron
C.H. Sisson
John Laughlin
John Logan
William Logan

Fiction:

Nathaniel West- Miss Lonelyhearts, Day of the Locust
Flannery O'Connor- Short Stories
Paul Bowles- Beneath the Sheltering Sky
Saul Bellow- Seize the Day, The Adventures of Augie March
Dashiell Hammett- The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man
Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita, Ada, Short Stories
Walter Abish- How German is It?
Ralph Ellison- Invisible Man
Gore Vidal- Myra Breckenridge, Lincoln, Burr, essays
Norman Mailer- The Naked and the Dead, The Executioner's Song, Ancient
Evenings, Advertisements for Myself
Tennessee Williams- Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly, Last Summer, Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie
Arthur Miller- Death of a Saleman, The Crucible
Philip Roth- Portnoy's Complaint, Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue,
The Breast, The Anatomy Lesson, Prague Orgy, The American
Pastoral, Sabbath's Theater
John Barth- The Sot Weed Factor, Giles Goat Boy, essays
Thomas Pynchon- V, The Crying of Lot 49, Mason & Dixon
Donald Barthelme- The Dead Father, 40 Stories, 60 Stories
Cormac McCarthy- Child of God, Blood Meridian, The Border Trilogy, The
Road, No Country for Old Men
Don Delillo- White Noise, The Body Artist, Underworld


As you may be able to discern, I'm far more enamored of poetry than the novel and so I have a rather large selection of suggested poets. Among my favorites are those placed in italic.

[mortalterror]

This is more a nitpick than anything else, but Nathanael West died in 1940 on the same weekend as his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald; so he doesn't fit in the period doowop is inquiring about.

[doowoop]

Thank you very much! Oh really, I read Nabokov and Dashiell Hamett. I am not so benighted. Thanks to all !

[doowoop]

Nothing! Because in our bookstores and libraries are very poorly represented in American literature. I need the names.

[Chris 73]

For those who like Cormac Mcarthy Daniel Woodrell is excellent.

[tonywalt]

Wouldn't Jay Mclnerney make the list, if only for Bright Lights Big City. I think alot of these books will take time for mature into great books. It's certainly unconventional.

[Rores28]

I'll echo David Foster Wallace and Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian is still among the best things I've ever read, new or old.

[G L Wilson]

I have got to read Blood Meridian.

[Gregory Samsa]

Fiction:

Nathaniel West- Miss Lonelyhearts, Day of the Locust
Flannery O'Connor- Short Stories
Paul Bowles- Beneath the Sheltering Sky
Saul Bellow- Seize the Day, The Adventures of Augie March
Dashiell Hammett- The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man
Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita, Ada, Short Stories
Walter Abish- How German is It?
Ralph Ellison- Invisible Man
Gore Vidal- Myra Breckenridge, Lincoln, Burr, essays
Norman Mailer- The Naked and the Dead, The Executioner's Song, Ancient
Evenings, Advertisements for Myself
Tennessee Williams- Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly, Last Summer, Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie
Arthur Miller- Death of a Saleman, The Crucible
Philip Roth- Portnoy's Complaint, Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue,
The Breast, The Anatomy Lesson, Prague Orgy, The American
Pastoral, Sabbath's Theater
John Barth- The Sot Weed Factor, Giles Goat Boy, essays
Thomas Pynchon- V, The Crying of Lot 49, Mason & Dixon
Donald Barthelme- The Dead Father, 40 Stories, 60 Stories
Cormac McCarthy- Child of God, Blood Meridian, The Border Trilogy, The
Road, No Country for Old Men
Don Delillo- White Noise, The Body Artist, Underworld



I would say Nabokov, Roth and McCarthy are the one worth reading on that list. Maybe Pynchon, but he is a writer I think you hate or love.

My favorite is John Steinbeck.

[callmeMrTibbs]

Fitzgerald is my favourite, but surely when it comes to living writers Jonathan Franzen deserves a mention? 'Freedom' is an incredible novel and 'The Corrections' isn't far behind....

[doowoop]

I also like Fitzgerald. But I prefer the novel "Tender Is the Night". I think Nabokov literal style. Clean, clear, but literal? Sorry for my English.

[Fyodor]

Samsa, I agree entirely.

[Mariner]

I would say Nabokov, Roth and McCarthy are the one worth reading on that list. Maybe Pynchon, but he is a writer I think you hate or love.

My favorite is John Steinbeck.

So true. When I don't have much time to read, hate Pynchon. When I have time to read, love Pynchon.

He's brilliant but it's not fun when I have limited time to read every character and every item's lengthy backstory. I'd rather see the story progress. But hey, that's his style so I can't fault him for that. Just not always my preference.

[doowoop]

Well this is the usual situation, if a book makes you think, you need time to read it. Otherwise lost the desire to read it.

[Heteronym]

These days, I only read Philip Roth and Edward Albee. All the other living writers leave me indifferent.