Great American Novel
Great American Novel
Latest Episodes
Episode 41: Feeling the Modern World Fracture in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1934) has always sparked great debate about whether it is a noble botch or a modernist classic because its non-chronological form, confounding character motivation, and intrusive nar...
Episode 40: Can All the King's Men Put Us Back Together Again?
Episode 40 of the Great American Novel Podcasts discusses one of the great American novels of the Twentieth Century, one that is perhaps more significant and relevant now than it has been in quite some time. In this episode y...
Ep 39: Going Berserk in the American Pastoral
In 1997 Philip Roth entered a brilliant late phrase of a career that no one really saw coming. While certainly one of the greats of later twentieth century American fiction, he was widely seen as spinning variations on his favorite fixations, s...
Ep. 38: Now for Something Completely Different: the Great American Short Story Cycle
And now for something completely different. In its 38th episode, the Great American Novel Podcast throws away its foundational genre with no more regard for decorum than cats and dogs shacking up in sheer defiance of the apocalypse. In th...
EP 37: Engaging the Existential in Walker Percy's THE MOVIEGOER
Walker Percy's 1961 debut novel The Moviegoer---which shocked the literary world when it came out of nowhere to win the National Book Award against some stiff competition---may strike contemporary readers as an elusive novel. The first...