20TH CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION

Sehome High School Library

Date:  9/22/2005

 

 

 

F Anderson                   

           Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941.  Winesburg, Ohio.  [New ed.].  New

                York, : Viking Press, 1960 [1919].  A unified collection of

                short stories about a young reporter George Willare, who is

                in revolt about the barren narrowness of small town life in

                the American Midwest.

 

F Baldwin                    

           Baldwin, James, 1924-.  If Beale Street could talk.  New York, :

                Dial Press, 1974.  An elemental love story of great power:

                about Tish, 19 and pregnant, and Fonny, 22 and innocently

                jailed.

 

F Baldwin                    

           Baldwin, James, 1924-.  Go tell it on the mountain.  New York :

                Modern Library, 1995.  A fourteen-year old boy discovers the

                terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a

                store-front Pentecostal church in Harlem on a Saturday in

                March of 1935.

 

F Ball                       

           Ball, John Dudley, 1911-.  Johnny get your gun; : a novel,.  [1st

                ed.].  Boston, : Little, Brown, [1969].  Story of Johnny, a

                9-year old boy with a gun, obsessed with the desire to

                revenge the "murder" of his transistor radio, a crime

                perpetrated by a schoolmate. Virgil Tibbs is the detective

                in this story.

 

F Beatty                     

           Beatty, John Louis, 1922-1975.  Who comes to King's Mountain?

                New York : Morrow, 1975.  Living in the South Carolina hills

                in 1780, a young Scottish boy, whose own family is divided

                between Loyalist and rebel, must decide for himself which

                side he will follow.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  Dangling man.  New York, : The Vanguard press,

                [1944].  Joseph gives up his job expecting to be inducted

                into the army, but due to technicalities, he is left

                dangling for almost a year.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  Herzog.  New York, : Viking Press, [1964].  Moses

                Herzog sees himself as a survivor of private disasters, but

                also those of the age, and asks himself piercing questions.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  Seize the day, : with three short stories and a

                one-act play.  New York, : Viking Press, 1956.  Tommy

                Wilhelm, a city man, constantly feels the sky is coming down

                on him. He seeks his greatest need; the reason of things.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  The Victim.  New York : Vanguard Press, 1947.  Asa

                Leventhal held a position at a New York trade journal and

                had become successful and secure, until his Gentile friend

                accuses him of ruining him and his career.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  The dean's December : a novel.  1st Harper & Row

                ed.  New York : Harper & Row, c1982.  Albert Corde, a

                newspaperman turned academic, leaves the country to visit

                his dying mother-in-law, and while he is gone from Chicago,

                his magazine articles and involvement in a student murder

                scandal place him in the middle of a raging controversy.

 

F Bellow                      

           Bellow, Saul.  The adventures of Augie March, : a novel.  New

                York, : Mod. Lib., 1949.  Describes the life of Augie March,

                a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Depression, and his

                search for a career.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  Humboldt's gift.  New York : Viking Press, 1975.

                Two characters force Charlie to re-examine his life. One is

                Humboldt, a poet he knew in the 1930's, the other is a

                small-time gangster.

 

F Bellow                     

           Bellow, Saul.  Mr. Sammler's planet.  New York, : Viking Press,

                [1970].  A survivor of the death camps in World War II, Mr.

                Sammler is attentive to everything and appalled by nothing,

                in his study of New York life and the future of life.

 

F Bjorn                      

           Bjorn, Thyra Ferre.  Papa's wife.  New York : Bantam, 1966,

                c1955.  A beautiful young Swedish girl captures the heart of

                a reluctant bachelor minister by becoming his housemaid.

 

F Buck                       

           Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.  Mandala.  New

                York, : John Day Co., [1970].  Prince Jagat has lost most of

                his wealth and royal titles, and sets out with an American

                girl to find out if his son is actually dead. A delicate

                romance ensues.

 

F Buck                        

           Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.  The three

                daughters of Madame Liang; : a novel,.  New York, : John Day

                Co., [1969].  Madam Liang is the owner of the most exclusive

                and fashionable restaurant in Shanghai. Her daughters, all

                educated in America, show the conflict between old China and

                the new.

 

F Buck                       

           Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.  The Big wave.

                New York, : J. Day Co., [1973, c1948].  His family and

                village swept away by a tidal wave, Jiya learns to live with

                the ever-present dangers from the sea and volcano.

 

F Buck                       

           Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.  Imperial woman;

                : a novel.  New York, : J. Day Co., [c1956].  Tzu-hsi

                receives an imperial summons to appear before the Empress of

                China who has always been opposed to the western powers and

                in favor of China's seclusion.

 

F Buck                       

           Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.  The time is

                noon; : a novel,.  New York, : John Day Co., [1967, c1966].

                Joan Richards returns to Middlehope after college to nurse

                her mother, and discovers things about her family she

                doesn't like.

 

F Cather                     

           Cather, Willa, 1873-1947.  O pioneers!  Boston, New York, :

                Houghton Mifflin company, 1913.  When her father dies,

                Alexandra takes over the care of her family and the

                management of the farm, showing her energy and courage.

 

F Cather                     

           Cather, Willa, 1873-1947.  Obscure destinies.  New York, :

                Vintage Books, 1974,[1932].  Three stories of the West:

                Neighbour Rosicky.--Old Mrs. Harris.--Two friends.  Neighbor

                Rosicky is a Bohemian immigrant whose hunger for the earth

                drove him from New York to a Nebraska prairie farm. Old Mrs.

                Harris is a fine old woman who tried to keep up the

                traditions of her comfortable life in Tennessee when she was

                transplanted to a Colorado town. Two Friends, two well-to-do

                businessmen in a small Kansas town break up their long

                friendship in a disagreement over politics.

 

F Cather                      

           Cather, Willa, 1873-1947.  Death comes for the archbishop ...

                New York, : A. A. Knopf, 1927.  The novel describes the

                missionary efforts of the French bishop Jean latour and his

                vicar, Father Joseph Vaillant, to establish a diocese in the

                territory of New Mexico. The novel is based on the lives of

                French clerics, Bish Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814-1888) and

                Father Joseph Machebeuf. They prevail over all adversities

                to build a cathedral in the wilderness.

 

F Cather                     

           Cather, Willa, 1873-1947.  Shadows on the rock.  New York, : A.

                A. Knopf, 1931.  Cecile Auclair and her father Euclide watch

                as thier old world traditions and values in Quebec are being

                replaced by new ideas and men with less influence from

                Europe. Takes place during the last days of the French

                Canadian leader Frontenac (1697-1698).

 

F Cormier                    

           Cormier, Robert.  The chocolate war; : a novel.  [New York] :

                Pantheon Books, [1974].  A high school freshman discovers

                the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the

                school's annual fund raising drive and arousing the wrath of

                the school bullies.

 

F Cormier                    

           Cormier, Robert.  After the first death.  New York : Pantheon

                Books, c1979.  Events of the hijacking of a bus of children

                by terrorists seeking the return of their homeland are

                described from the perspectives of a hostage, a terrorist,

                an Army general involved in the rescue operation, and his

                son, chosen as the go-between.

 

F Cormier                    

           Cormier, Robert.  Beyond the chocolate war : a novel.  1st ed.

                New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, c1985.  Dark

                deeds continue at Trinity High School, climaxing in a public

                demonstration of one student's homemade guillotine. Sequel

                to "The Chocolate War.".

 

F Cormier                    

           Cormier, Robert.  The bumblebee flies anyway.  1st ed.  New York

                : Pantheon Books, c1983.  Sixteen-year-old Barney has only

                fleeting memories about his past but, as a voluntary patient

                at the institute for experimental medicine, he knows he is

                different from the terminally ill patients surrounding him.

                His involvement with the bitter, slowly dying, Mazzo brings

                Barney hope, pain, and a moment of heroic glory.

 

F Cormier                     

           Cormier, Robert.  I am the cheese : a novel.  [New York] :

                Pantheon Books, c1977.  A young boy desperately tries to

                unlock his past yet knows he must hide those memories if he

                is to remain alive.

 

F Craven                     

           Craven, Margaret.  Walk gently this good Earth.  New York :

                Putnam, c1977.  Follows the lives of the four Westcott

                children and their adopted brother from the 1930's to the

                present, as they maintain their close family ties and

                old-fashioned values while living on their vast Montana

                ranch.

 

F Davis                      

           Davis, Terry.  Vision quest : a novel.  New York : Viking Press,

                1979.  An eighteen-year-old wrestler, Louden Swain pursues

                many interests, including a love affair, hiking in the

                Cascades and reading American novels, as he strives to

                achieve his quest for "vision.".

 

F DeLillo                    

           DeLillo, Don.  Libra.  New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1988.  A

                fictional speculation of the events leading up to the

                assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

F DeLillo                    

           DeLillo, Don.  White noise.  New York : Penguin Books, 1986.  The

                Gladney's family life is disrupted and threatened when an

                industrial accident sends a lethal cloud over their

                community. Jack Gladney struggles with the ensuing

                complications which include murder.

 

F Dexter                     

           Dexter, Pete, 1943-.  Paris Trout.  1st ed.  New York : Random

                House, c1988.  A white man named Paris Trout murders a

                fourteen-year-old black girl in a small Georgia town just

                after World War II. He feels he has done absolutely nothing

                wrong. The effects of this brutal killing on the small

                southern town, its civility, manners, and social fabric is

                the story of this book.

 

F Dexter                     

           Dexter, Pete, 1943-.  Brotherly love.  New York : Random House,

                1991.  Peter, son of a powerful Philadelphia union boss who

                had connections with the mob, was orphaned at the age of 8

                and fell into a different world of bad blood and shifting

                loyalties, a world where violence was everywhere and

                inescapable.

 

F Dillard                    

           Dillard, Annie.  The Living.  New York, NY : HarperCollins

                Publishers, c1992.  Historical novel of Bellingham,

                Washington during the late 1800's and early part of the 20th

                century.

 

F Doctorow                   

           Doctorow, E. L., 1931-.  Loon lake.  1st trade ed.  New York :

                Random House, c1979.  During the Great Depression of the

                thirties, Warren follows a private train to Loon Lake, the

                hidden wilderness estate of one of the country's richest

                men. There he studies conflicting values and demands, and

                plunges into a life that he little expected.

 

F Doctorow                   

           Doctorow, E. L., 1931-.  World's fair.  1st ed.  New York :

                Random House, c1985.  When the New York World's Fair comes

                in 1939, Ed crosses over into a future of his own, in a time

                when life was simpler.

 

F Doig                       

           Doig, Ivan.  The sea runners.  1st ed.  New York : Atheneum,

                1982.  In 1853 four indentured servants escape from Russian

                Alaska and make their way by canoe down the Pacific

                Northwest coast toward Oregon.

 

F Doig                       

           Doig, Ivan.  English creek.  1st ed.  New York : Atheneum, 1984.

                Jick McCaskill and his family live in northern Montana,

                where his father is a forest ranger and range rider. His

                older brother at 18 is set on marriage to a town girl and

                livelihood as a cowboy, which throws the family into

                conflict.

 

F Dorris                     

           Dorris, Michael.  The window.  1st ed.  New York : Hyperion

                Books, c1997.  When ten-year-old Rayona's Native American

                mother enters a treatment facility, her estranged father, a

                Black man, finally introduces her to his side of the family,

                who are not at all what she expected.

 

F Dos Passos                 

           Dos Passos, John, 1896-1970.  U.S.A.  Boston, : Houghton Mifflin,

                1963 [1938].  The 42nd parallel.--Nineteen nineteen.--The

                big money.  Three novels of pre WWI and the boom era of the

                Twenties.

 

F Dubus                      

           Dubus, Andre, 1936-.  Selected stories.  1st ed.  Boston : D.R.

                Godine, 1988.  23 stories by Andre Dubus show people who

                come to accept pain as a fair price for pleasure, and to

                view right and wrong as a matter of degree. He suggests that

                their self-inflicted punishments are often worse than what a

                just court, or a just God, would decree.

 

F Edmonds                    

           Edmonds, Walter Dumaux, 1903-.  The night raider and other

                stories.  Boston : Little, Brown, c1980.  Perfection of

                Orchard View.--Raging canal.--Charlie Phister's famous bee

                shot.--The night raider.  Four short stories set in New York

                State during the early years of this century: Raging Canal

                shows the dark, savage side of what life was often like for

                the boys who worked on the Erie Canal. In Perfection of

                Orchard View, a gentleman farmer has a truly funny

                disagreement with his hired hand. Charlie is an example of

                the brashness of youth and Night Raider is the story of a

                wild animal who ventures too close to civilization.

 

F Edwards                    

           Edwards, Louis.  Ten seconds.  St. Paul : Graywolf Press, 1991.

                Darrell McDaniel relives the main periods in his life in

                10-seconds of a 100 meter race. Darrell, a young

                African-American man, attempts to ground his identity in the

                south.

 

F Ellison                    

           Ellison, Ralph.  Invisible man.  2nd Vintage International ed.

                New York : Vintage International, 1995.  Tells the story of

                a black man who goes through progressive states from

                youthful affirmation in a small southern town, to total

                rejection after a Harlem race riot. Stiving to be himself,

                he finds that he must not only contend with the whites but

                with the powerful members of his own race.

 

F Erdrich                    

           Erdrich, Louise.  Tracks : a novel.  1st ed.  New York : Henry

                Holt, c1988.  Told in the alternating voices of a wise

                Chippewa Indian leader, and a young, embittered mixed-blood

                woman, the novel chronicles the drama of daily lives

                overshadowed by the clash of cultures and mythologies.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  Intruder in the dust.  New York, :

                Random House, [1948].  Lucas Beauchamp, a Negro who refuses

                to accept a servileattitude, is accused, wrongfully, of

                murdering a white man and is threatened by a lynch

                mob.Sixteen-year-old Chick and his friends prove his

                innocence and help capture the real murderer.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  The sound and the fury.  Modern,

                1946 [1929].  A degenerate Southern family, the Compsons,

                are described by Benjy, a 33-year-old idiot.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  Big woods.  New York, : Random

                House, [1955].  The bear.--The old people.--A bear

                hunt.--Race at morning.  A collection of Faulkner's hunting

                stories.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  Light in August;.  New York, :

                Modern Library, [1950] [1932].  Joe Christmas, part black,

                part white, has an affair with Joanna Burden, whom he kills,

                and sets fire to her house. The enraged townspeople capture,

                castrate and kill him.

 

F Faulkner                    

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  The reivers, : a reminiscence.

                New York, : Random House, [1962].  On a summer day in 1905,

                Lucius Priest age 11 is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck to

                "borrow" his grandfather's car and make a trip to Memphis.

                Ned McCaslin, Negro, stows away and the three are off on a

                heroic odyssey which ends at Miss Reba's bordello,

                effectively destroying Lucius' innocence.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  The sound and the fury.  New York,

                : Random House, [1946] [1929].  Three brothers of the

                Compson family each tell their thoughts about their decaying

                aristocratic family of Mississippi. The idiot Benjy, the

                Harvard student Quentin and the petty-minded Jason each

                expose the family problems and weaknesses.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  Go down, Moses.  New York, :

                Modern Library, 1955, [1942].  Was.--The Fire and the

                hearth.--Pantaloon in black.--The old people.--The

                bear.--Delta Autumn.--Go down, Moses.  A collection of short

                stories set in Faulkner's mythical Yoknapatawpha County. The

                stories are unified by a common theme of the rituals of

                hunting.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  Absalom, Absalom!  New York, :

                Random house, 1964 [1936].  Thomas Sutpen, son of a poor

                white planter, attempts to be accepted as a Southern

                aristocrat and founder of a wealthy family. Returning from

                battle in the Civil War, he finds his plantation and dreams

                in ruins.

 

F Faulkner                   

           Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.  The hamlet.  [3d ed.].  New York,

                : Random House, [1964], [1940].  Flem Snopes begins as a

                clerk in a store in Yoknapatawpha County early in the 20th

                century. Through usury, connivance and thrift he becomes

                part-owner of the store and husband of his employer's

                daughter. He later works his way up to vice president in a

                bank, driving the president from town.

 

F Fitzgerald                 

           Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940.  The great

                Gatsby.  1st Scribner Paperback Fiction ed.  New York :

                Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995.  The tragic story of the

                wealthy Jay Gatsby and his attempt to win back the love of

                Daisy Buchanan.

 

F Fleischman                 

           Fleischman, Paul.  Mind's eye.  1st ed.  New York : Holt, 1999.

                A novel in play form in which sixteen-year-old Courtney,

                paralyzed in an accident, learns about the power of the mind

                from an elderly blind woman who takes Courtney on an

                imaginary journey to Italy using some handwritten notes in a

                1910 Baedeker's guidebook.

 

F Guthrie                    

           Guthrie, A. B. (Alfred Bertram), 1901-.  No second wind.  Boston

                : Houghton Mifflin, 1980.  In the midst of the tension and

                threatened violence of the conflict between ranchers and

                strip-miners, the sheriff of a small town in Montana tries

                to solve a baffling murder.

 

F He                         

           Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961.  For whom the bell tolls.  1st

                Scribner trade pbk. ed.  New York : Scribner, 2003.  The

                story of an American, Robert Jordan, and his adventures

                during the Civil War in Spain with the anti-fascist

                guerrillas in the mountains.

 

F Heller                     

           Heller, Joseph.  Catch-22 : a novel.  New York : Simon &

                Schuster, 1999.  A bombardier, based in Italy during World

                War II, repeatedly tries to avoid flying bombing missions

                while his colonel tries to get him killed by demanding that

                he fly more and more missions.

 

F Hemingway                   

           Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961.  To have and have not.  New York, :

                Scribner, 1937.

 

F Hersey                     

           Hersey, John, 1914-.  Under the eye of the storm.  Knopf, 1967.

                Tom Medlar and his three passengers aboard the Harmony (his

                wife and a couple named Harnden) are swept out to sea in the

                path of a hurricane.

 

F Hersey                     

           Hersey, John, 1914-.  A single pebble.  [1st ed.].  New York, :

                Knopf, 1956.  While in China on business in the 1920's, a

                young American engineer becomes involved in the lives of

                people who live on a junk on the Yangtze River.

 

F Ignatius                   

           Ignatius, David, 1950-.  The sun king : a novel.  1st ed.  New

                York : Random House, c1999.  Sandy Galvin, a billionaire

                with a rare talent for taking risks and making people happy,

                buys the most powerful newspaper in Washington D.C. and

                wields it like a sword. But in his path, is his old Harvard

                flame, Candace Ridgway, a beautiful and icy journalist known

                to her colleagues as the Mistresss of Fact. A love story.

 

F Irving                     

           Irving, John, 1942-.  The Hotel New Hampshire.  1st ed.  New York

                : Dutton, c1981.  The novel takes place in two different

                countries, in the U.S. (Maine) and in Vienna during the

                1950's. The main character John Berry, middle child in a

                family of 8 that includes a bear and a dog named Sorrow,

                tells about his family, which he describes as a hotel

                family. They own a series of hotels, the last of which is in

                New Hampshire where his father's dreams guide the unique

                family.

 

F Irving                     

           Irving, John, 1942-.  A widow for one year : a novel.  1st ed.

                New York : Random House, 1998.  A multilayered love story of

                astonishing emotional force.

 

F Jones                      

           Jones, Douglas C.  Elkhorn Tavern.  1st ed.  New York : Holt,

                Rinehart and Winston, c1980.  While Martin Hasford is away

                fighting in the Confederate army, his wife Ora and two

                children Roman and Calpurnia, fight off civilian and

                military marauders near the tavern called The Elkhorn in

                western Arkansas.

 

F Kantor                     

           Kantor, MacKinlay 1904-.  Voice of Bugle Ann.  Coward-McCann,

                1935.  Bugle Ann, a fox-hound whose hunting days and nights

                were spent in the Missouri hills, was so well loved by her

                master Springfield Davis, that he shot the man who was

                suspected of killing her.

 

F Kerouac                    

           Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969.  On the road.  40th Annivesary ed.  New

                York : Viking, 1997, 1957.  Chronicles Kerouac's years

                traveling the North American continent, from East Coast to

                West Coast to Mexico with his friend Neal Cassady. The two

                roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and

                experience.

 

F Knowles                    

           Knowles, John, 1926-.  Peace breaks out.  1st ed.  New York :

                Holt, Rinehart and Winston, c1981.  An ex-infantryman and

                P.O.W. comes to Devon School in New Hampshire, a boys prep

                school, to teach American history and coach athletics,

                thinking it would be a respite from war. Instead, among his

                students he finds the violence and evil of war repeating

                itself.

 

F Lamott                     

           Lamott, Anne.  Crooked little heart.  1st ed.  New York :

                Pantheon Books, c1997.  Thirteen-year-old tennis champion

                Rosie Ferguson, her mother Elizabeth, and her stepfather

                James, all struggle with their own heartbreaks along the

                road to becoming a united family.

 

F Lester                     

           Lester, Julius.  Two love stories.  New York, : Dial Press,

                [1972].  Basketball game.--Catskill morning.  In Basketball

                Game, the author explores the tentative relationship between

                a black boy and a white girl in a Southern city, a

                relationship ultimately destroyed by the barriers of color.

                In Catskill Morning, he writes of sexual awakening in an

                idyllic love affair which ends shatteringly.

 

F Lewis                      

           Lewis, Sinclair, 1885-1951.  Babbitt.  New York : Harcourt, Brace

                & World, c1950 [1922].  Babbitt is a middle-class realtor

                who tries to alter his dull life with a little excitement

                only to find that his fear of ostracism is greater than his

                desire for escape.

 

F Lewis                      

           Lewis, Sinclair, 1885-1951.  Arrowsmith.  New York, : Harcourt,

                Brace & World, [1952? c1925].  A young doctor, Martin

                Arrowsmith, begins medical practice in a small town, moving

                on to a city health department, and eventually becomes the

                doctor at an "institute" sponsored by a rich man and his

                wife. In his quest for pure science, Arrowsmith encounters

                meanness, corruption and misunderstanding, and he finds

                himself oftern frustrated with the practice. The novel is

                frequently satiric and caused much controversy when it was

                first