(PORTLAND TRIBUNE) -- The Atlantic magazine has included “Geek Love,” the breakout 1989 novel by the late Portland writer Katherine Dunn, on its recently released list of “The Great American Novels.”
The prestigious publication released the list of 136 fiction books on March 14, calling them “the most consequential novels of the past 100 years.” They include 45 debut novels, nine winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and three children’s books.
In the introduction to the list, The Atlantic’s editors wrote that, together, they represent the best of what novels can do: “challenge us, delight us, pull us in and then release us, a little smarter and a little more alive than we were before. You have to read them.”
The concept of the great American novel was established in 1868 by the writer John William DeForest as a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” The Atlantic’s editors wrote, “In 2024, our definition of literary greatness is wider, deeper, and weirder than DeForest likely could have imagined. At the same time, the novel is also under threat, as the forces of anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism seek to ban books and curtail freedom of expression. The American canon is more capacious, more fluid, and more fragile than perhaps ever before.”
The Atlantic list was prepared by projects editor Ellen Cushing, deputy editor Jane Kim, senior editor Gal Beckerman, associate editor Emma Sarappo, and literary editor Ann Hulbert, in consultation with experts — scholars, critics, and novelists, both at The Atlantic and outside of it.
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