Stephen Amidon's latest novel Human Capital chronicles the American suburban dream with devastating accuracy in a moving story that grips to the last page. We asked him to tell us about some of his favourite American classics.
More than Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter, this is the grandaddy of the American novel. The story of a boy and a nation coming of age at the same moment gave birth to a native fiction that could finally exist independently of its European forebears. Twain's crowning genius was to conjure with Huck's narration a voice that was purely American - restless, innocent, crude and canny.
Like his friend Hemingway, Fitzgerald was able to capture the spirit of his gilded age with an elegance that later writers can only look upon with awe. And, like Twain, he was able to create a protagonist who became the perfect mirror for a nation rapidly shedding its innocence. Making a million never looked the same after Gatsby wound up face down in his pool.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway*
Hemingway's ode to the "lost generation" is a perfect novel, its elliptical style hinting at almost limitless profundities of loss and desire. It is almost impossible to believe that its author was only twenty-five - and that nothing that he did in his raucous career ever came close to its flawless beauty. The final scene between its two wounded protagonists, Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley, is among the most heartbreaking in all literature. *Please note this book is not published by Penguin.
A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone*
Stone's brilliant and underrated 1967 debut deals with vast right-wing conspiracies, endemic racism and a New Orleans about to sink into oblivion. Does any of this sound familiar? Please note this book is not published by Penguin.
White Noise by Don DeLillo*
DeLillo's black comedy of a toxic spill in a quiet Midwestern town remains the seminal exploration of contemporary dread and paranoia - few writers working since its 1985 publication can escape its ghostly influence. The scene where the lovable Gladney clan flee a noxious cloud in the family station wagon is an unforgettable image of things to come. *Please note this book is not published by Penguin.
Author interviews
