Great American Novel
Episodes
Engaging the Existential in Walker Percy's THE MOVIEGOER
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWalker Percy's 1961 debut novel The Moviegoer---which shocked the literary world when it came out of nowhere to win the National B...
Episode 36: Burning Down the Days with THE FLAMETHROWERS by Rachel Kushner
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIt’s 1976. A woman named Reno in leather motorcycle gear descends upon the Bonneville Salt Flats on a state of the art Moto Valera mot...
Episode 35: Escaping War for Love in Ernest Hemingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS
10 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textErnest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms is probably the most famous war novel in American literary history. Inspired by ...
Episode 34: Riding the Rails with THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn this, our 34th episode of the Great American Novel podcast, the hosts tackle Colson Whitehead’s intriguing, interesting, and in som...
Episode 33: Pulling Out the Mote in Flannery O'Connor's WISE BLOOD
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textMore celebrated for her dark, satirical short stories, Flannery O'Connor nevertheless burst on the literary scene in 1952 in her mi...
Episode 32: Watching the Flames from Slaughterhouse-Five
24 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn Episode 32 of the Great American Novel podcast, we slip through time with Billy Pilgrim as we shuffle between the character’s exper...
Episode 31: Crossing the Country with Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textFew novels have had the cultural impact of Jack Kerouac's speed-fueled mad dash across the continent in search of kicks as On the R...
Episode 30: Sailing on the SHIP OF FOOLS
10 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textA couple of weeks ago—after this episode was recorded, but before it was edited and posted—the famous author Stephen King posted onl...
Episode 29: Rallying Around the Flag in Stephen Crane's THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE
11 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Red Badge of Courage (1895) is a singularly unique war novel: whereas most depictions of the horrors of combat and the trauma of the...
Episode 28: Falling off the Cliff with The Catcher in the Rye
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel Podcast episode 28 considers JD Salinger’s landmark 1951 classic, The Catcher in the Rye. Your hosts discus...
Episode 27: Filtering the Static in Don DeLillo's WHITE NOISE
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textOften hailed as the quintessential exemplum of Reagan-era postmodernism, Don DeLillo's eighth novel, White Noise (1985), is part ac...
Episode 26: Seekers of the Lonely Heart: Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe 26th episode of the Great American Novel Podcast delves into Carson McCullers’ 1940 debut novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Publ...
Episode 25: Surmising the Motives in Henry James's THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
13 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textPublished in 1881, The Portrait of a Lady was Henry James's seventh novel and marked his transition away from the novel of manners ...
Episode 24: Speeding Down the Highway with PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Joan Didion
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textGreat American Novel Podcast 24 considers Joan Didion’s 1970 novel Play It as It Lays, which shut the door on the 60s and sped down th...
Episode 23: Hearing Voices in William Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING
07 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWilliam Faulkner's fifth published novel, As I Lay Dying (1930), is a self-described tour de force that the author cranked out in r...
Episode 22: Rambling Along the REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn Great American Novel Podcast Episode 22, we wrestle with the old Thoreau quote "The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperat...
Defining Dignity through Service in Ernest J. Gaines' A LESSON BEFORE DYING
03 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textOnly thirty years old this year, Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying (1993) is a powerful testament to social justice and to t...
Episode 20: Cracking Through the Scrub with THE YEARLING
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn Great American Novel Podcast Episode 20, your fearless (or is it feckless) hosts find themselves in the damp swamps and thick scrubla...
Episode 19: Riding the Rocket with Thomas Pynchon's GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textSeason three kicks off with a fiftieth anniversary celebration of Thomas Pynchon's postmodernist whirl-a-gig Gravity's Rainbow...
Episode 18: We Want to Fly Away with Chopin's THE AWAKENING
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn Great American Novel Podcast Episode 18, our final Season 2 episode, we plunge ourselves into New Orleans of the fin de siècle in Ka...
Ep 17: Pursuing the Picaro in Saul Bellow's THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textSaul Bellow's 1953 breakthrough novel The Adventures of Augie March is perhaps, of all the great American novels we've discuss...
Episode 16: Classics of American Noir
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Searching for the Ghost of Tom Joad in John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textJohn's Steinbeck's 1939 tale of an "Oakie" family who crosses Route 66 seeking to escape the Dust Bowl only to disco...
Episode 14: Ride into the sun--Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe 14th episode is a ride into the evening redness in the west as your hosts consider one of the more notorious books on our short list...
Homing in on the Prairie with Willa Cather's My Ántonia
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWilla Cather's most famous novel was published only two months before the Armistice ended the bloodshed of the Great War, and in it...
Episode 12: Hitting the Road with LOLITA
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
The Everyday Ecstasy of Marilynne Robinsone's GILEAD
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textOur eleventh episode explores the most recent novel on our list of celebrated Great American Novels, Marilynne Robinson's 2004 Puli...
Episode 10: Finding the Lost Generation in Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Episode 9: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn this installment we look at another of the most iconic of GANs, Mark Twain's 1885 "bad boy" novel, Adventures of Huckl...
Episode 8: Beloved and Ghosts of the Past, the Present, and Possibly the Future
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Episode 7–All that Jazz: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn our seventh episode we explore a Great American Novel that's so ubiquitous it's almost hard to believe there was a time whe...
Episode 6: Watching the Horizon in THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Episode 5: Blending Black and White in ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWilliam Faulkner's dizzyingly complex, Lost Cause-dismantling 1936 novel about the rise and fall of a Southern plantation owner who...
Episode 4: Returning to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Episode 3: Seeing Ralph Ellison's INVISIBLE MAN Clearly
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textOn the eve of its seventieth birthday, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) occupies a unique place in the American canon. On the o...
Episode 2: Diving with MOBY DICK
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American litera...
Definitions and Debates: What Exactly is a GAN?
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textEver since J. W. DeForest popularized the phrase "Great American Novel" in 1868 commentators have debated the limits of all th...