Believe the Hype

Like many, we were vaguely dissatisfied with the contents of the the New York Times’ list of the Top 25 Works of American Fiction in the Last 25 years. We resolved to make our own, hopefully better, list. After many false starts and blown (but arbitrary) deadlines, here’s our list – as sorted alphabetically by my spreadsheet:

Our methodology differed from the NYT‘s in a few important ways. For starters, we did not have a stable of writers and critics to call upon to cast their votes nor did we have an A.O. Scott essay to accompany our list.  We also decided early on to limit any given author to only one book in the final list. This would prevent guys like Philip Roth from taking over ~25% of the list (see NYT‘s list). Having arbitrarily diminished the influence of DeLillo and Roth, the list was opened up for other contenders.

Secondly, the voting was opened up to our regular contributors and any other readers who cared to comment. Unlike the NYT‘s voting, our voters were allowed and encouraged to make a list of books that they thought should make the list, rather than a single “best” book. Facing a pitifully small n, I finally e-mailed our working list of nominated titles to the less motivated of our crew and had them simply put checks next to books that they agreed with and add any last minute write-in candidates. All together, about 25 people offered their opinions.

In the end, we ended up with about sixty recommended titles. Through the miracle of spreadsheets, I tallied the list and came up with our list above. Our book with the most votes – and this surprised me – was The Shipping News. I don’t think that anyone would have said “this is the best book of the past 25 years!”, but it seemed to be the one that we could all agree on. Go figure. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was second, and A Confederacy of Dunces was third. Although, it should be said, a sizable and vocal minority of our voters absolutely hated Dunces. They clearly have no taste.
I think that we ended up with a pretty good list. It’s not a list that I would defend to the death – or even in a protracted flame war – but fairly decent all the same. Our list appears to have a more populist, or accessible, slant to it. Many of the old white guys were left off our list – Updike, Gaddis, etc. Most of those casting voter for our list (at least the one’s that I know) are in our thirties, so we seem to have missed the Updike books. I don’t know anyone who has read the Rabbit series. Maybe we’re just philistines. By the same token, we seem to have given short shrift to the books of our formative years. Guys like Jay McInerney and Brett Easton Ellis are nowhere to be seen.

As keeper of the spreadsheet, I mostly chose to honor the votes as cast. Mostly. I didn’t think that The Kite Runner should be on the list, but I seemed to be alone in that view. Up it went. Similarly, I think The Cider House Rules is John Irving’s best book (so does John Irving), but The People’s choice was A Prayer for Owen Meany. So be it. With about a 16-way tie for 25th place, I decided to break the tie and add a dark horse to the list,  Cryptonomicon. It’s a fantastic book, I thought that it deserved a place on the list, and so there it is. (I did find at least one other person to validate my opinion before adding it).

Anyway, that’s our list. Is it any better than the Times’?

We look forward to your comments.

categories Books | | datetime June 11, 2006 10:03 pm

  • By beedlebaum, June 13, 2006 @ 11:45 am

    I’m not sure how anyone could consider The Plot Against America to be even in the top 5 of books that Roth has written in the last 25 years. But that’s just me.

    I do like your list.

  • By DJ Cayenne, June 13, 2006 @ 12:05 pm

    I hear what you’re saying, but that’s the way the votes turned out. Most people had “Plot”, plus one or two others – just not the same one or two others. “Human Stain” and “American Pastoral” were close seconds.

  • By Porchland, June 13, 2006 @ 2:16 pm

    I’m disappointed after seeing all of these lists that “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis has apparently lost its luster. Yes, it’s gorey, but it’s a startling satire of money and violence, which are still two of the driving forces of American culture. (And “Glamorama” isn’t too shabby.)

  • By DJ Cayenne, June 13, 2006 @ 2:28 pm

    I know! I also thought that “Less Than Zero” was outstanding. Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City” should be getting some love as well, in my opinion. Those books were as 80′s zeitgeist-y as you can get. It’s like we’re trying to forget the 80′s ever happened. Are the 80′s the new 70′s?

  • By Dr J, June 15, 2006 @ 5:01 pm

    I’m still floored that some people are dumb enough not to recognize the genius of Confederacy.
    Why do you hate New Orleans?

  • By Shortbus, June 20, 2006 @ 12:43 pm

    Dr J – I don’t hate the place, just the playa. The only way I could make him go away was to finally stop reading the book. Man, did that guy bug me.

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