For Fourth of July we decided to draft a list of Great American Novels that set the tone for today’s America. These novels capture the diversity, spirit, and complexity of our nation, reflecting the tapestry that is known as American life. From personal triumph tales to cultural heritage to pursuing the American Dream, these new Great American Novels are must-reads for anyone looking to celebrate Independence Day by reading.
Real Americans by Rachel Khong (2024)
Set at the turn of the millennium in New York City, Real Americans follows twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern, who has fallen in love with Matthew, the heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Despite Lily’s different background, being the child of two Chinese scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution and planted their new life in Tampa, her and Matthew’s love flourishes. By 2021, Lily’s fifteen-year-old son Nick does not know what to do with his life. He embarks on a journey to find out about his biological father, leading to more questions than answers.
Rachel Khong’s Real Americans is a new Great American Novel for its exploration of race, class, family, and the pursuit of the American dream through an immersive, entertaining, and moving story.
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Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (2023)
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, a violent and controversial program within America’s private prison system where prisoners compete to the death in fights for their freedom. As teammates and lovers, Thurwar and Staxxx are fan favorites, and Thurwar is on the brink of winning her freedom. But as she prepares to leave, she grapples with helping her fellow prisoners preserve their humanity, even against the ruthless corporate interests of CAPE.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is a new Great American Novel for its scalding critique of America’s systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and the American prison industry. Read Chain-Gang All Stars for a powerful exploration of what true freedom means.
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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (2023)
June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be rising literary stars, but only Athena achieved that success. After June witnesses Athena’s accidental death, she impulsively steals Athena’s completed novel about the contributions of Chinese laborers in Word War I and claims it as her own. Rebranding herself as “Juniper Song”, June soaks up the success of the book, but finds herself haunted by Athena’s legacy and facing evidence that could expose her fraud.
Yellowface is a new Great American Novel because of its exploration of racism, diversity, cultural appropriation, and social media-fueled alienation that make up the country through a gripping novel.
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My Name is Iris by Brando Skyhorse (2024)
Iris Prince is finally starting over. After a drama-free and expected divorce, she is able to move into a new house and plans on focusing on her garden, coffee clubs, and spending more time with her nine-year-old daughter, Melanie. But her fresh start takes an unexpected and unsettling turn when a mysterious wall appears in her front yard, growing inexplicably. At the same time, a Silicon Valley startup introduces “the Band”, a high-tech wearable that requires proof of parental citizenship. This leaves Iris, a second-generation Mexican-American, without that proof, and her loved ones vulnerable.
This is a new Great American Novel because it examines the ideas of belonging, and identity, and showcases the challenges faced by immigrants within the current climate of fear and exclusion.
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The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis (2024)
Ayana Mathis’s powerful novel, The Unsettled, centers around two utopian communities: Bonaparte, Alabama, a once-thriving Black-owned town that is now succumbing to developers and depopulation, and a radical group called Ark in 1980s Philadelphia. Dutchess Carson fights to preserve the remaining land that Bonaparte has, while her estranged daughter Ava becomes involved with Ark, which is dedicated to Black self-determination. Meanwhile, Ava’s son Toussaint yearns to escape to Bonaparte, seeking solace in its mythical landscape.
The Unsettled is a new Great American Novel because of its vivid and realistic portrayal of the American struggle for freedom and legacy, highlighting the idea of resistance in the face of systematic oppression.
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The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)
Cora, an outcast and a slave on a Georgian plantation, seizes the chance to escape with Caesar, a new arrival from Virginia. Their escape route: the Underground Railroad. In Colson Whitehead’s inventive novel, this railroad is a literal network of tracks and tunnels beneath the South that offer Cora a dangerous route through various states, each presenting a strange but familiar version of the world she knew. As she flees, Whitehead’s prose recreates the antebellum era’s horrors.
The Underground Railroad is a new Great American Novel because it has a realistic portrayal of a woman’s escape from bondage and it reflects deeply on America’s shared and dark past.
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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015)
A Little Life, recently a BookTok and Bookstagram hit, follows four college friends who move to New York, seeking fame and fortune. Meanwhile, they are currently navigating relationships marred by addiction, success, and pride. Their deepening bonds are anchored by their devotion to Jude, a brilliant yet enigmatic man who is still scarred by childhood.
Hanya Yanagihara’s novel is one of the new Great American Novels because of its masterful exploration of brotherly love and bonds, showcasing the complexity and meaning of American families in the twenty-first century.
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Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (2017)
Jesmyn Ward’s second National Book Award-winning novel is an intimate portrayal of three generations of a family grappling with hope and hardship. At the family’s heart is thirteen-year-old Jojo, who is navigating his complicated family. With a Black grandfather, and an absent White father, alongside his troubled mother, Leonie, who is struggling with addiction and visions of her dead brother, Jojo is trying to find his place in the world.
Sing, Unburied, Sing is a new Great American Novel because it explores family dynamics, race, and the generational and haunting legacy of the South.
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The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
In 1960s Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis, a Black teenager, faces an unjust sentencing to the Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school. His friendship with Turner, who believes survival requires cynicism and deceit, becomes Elwood’s lifeline as they try to get through the Academy’s horrors.
The Nickel Boys is a new Great American Novel for its truthful portrayal of institutional cruelty and the impact that racism has on young lives.
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There There by Tommy Orange (2018)
Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober, seeks to reunite with her family, while Dene Oxendene works at the Big Oakland Powwow to honor his late uncle and fourteen-year-old Orvil prepares to perform traditional dance for the first time. Their stories, along with many others, converge at the powwow, showcasing the struggles and resilience of urban Native Americans as they live today despite their painful history.
There There is a new Great American Novel because of its much-needed portrayal of Native American life, blending poetry and rage to create a spectacular novel that explores the identities and cultures of many urban Native communities.
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An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (2018)
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, embodying both the American Dream and the New South, find their lives shattered when Roy is wrongfully imprisoned for twelve years. As Celestial struggles with his absence and grows closer to her childhood friend Andre, Roy’s sudden release after five years forces them to confront their new lives and how their forced separation impacted their relationship.
An American Marriage is a new Great American novel because of its themes of love, resilience, and the injustices that can tear lives apart.
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The Overstory by Richard Powers (2020)
An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War survives being shot down by landing in a banyan tree, while an artist inherits a century’s worth of portraits of a doomed American chestnut. Meanwhile, a hard-partying undergraduate is revived after electrocution by ethereal beings, and a hearing, and speech, impaired scientist discovers that the trees are communicating with each other. These four, along with five others, are drawn together by the trees to make a final, desperate stand to protect the last remaining acre of virgin forest trees on the continent.
Richard Powers’ The Overstory is a new Great American Novel for its narrative that intertwines human lives and nature, showing us themes of activism, resistance, and the interconnection that humans have with the Earth’s plants.
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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Vignes sisters, who grew up in a small southern Black community and ran away at sixteen, lead extremely different adult lives. One lives with her Black daughter in their hometown, while the other passes for White with a husband who is unaware of her past. Despite their differences and lives, their fates remain intertwined when their daughters suddenly connect.
The Vanishing Half is one of the new Great American Novels because of its exploration of family, identity, race, and how the past impacts everyone. Looking through multiple generations and geographic settings, this novel takes a deeper look at how complex it is to live beyond your origins.
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Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (2020)
Interior Chinatown, a soon-to-be Hulu series, follows Willis Wu who sees himself as a merely Generic Asian Man, relegated to minor roles. Each day, he leaves his tiny Chinatown room to play bit parts on the procedural cop show “Black and White”, dreaming of the prestigious role of Kung Fu Guy.
Charles Yu’s dark satire is a new Great American Novel because it reveals the racism within Hollywood, and pop culture, and how assimilation and immigration have affected Chinese Americans.
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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son, Little Dog, to his illiterate mother, revealing their family’s history rooted in Vietnam and uncovering parts of his life she has never known. Written in his late twenties, Little Dog’s letter dives into the complex love between him and his single mother while addressing themes of class, masculinity, and race.
This novel is a new Great American Novel because of its explanation of the immigrant experience, the addiction that plagues so many Americans, violence, and trauma.
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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
Ifemelu and Obinze, young and deeply in love, leave Nigeria for the West. While Ifemelu leaves for America, Obinze is forced to go to London. Ifemelu confronts issues of race and identity in America despite academic success, and Obinze faces a precarious, undocumented existence in post-9/11 London.
Americanah is a new Great American Novel due to its exploration of race, immigration, and identity through a Nigerian-American’s perspective of navigating the West.
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