I’m broken-hearted over California Chrome. Nothing left to do but go back and finish the Great American Novel. Anybody out there know what constitutes the Great American Novel? Obviously it has to be about Americans, but does it have to be set in America? How about a story set in some foreign land from which the characters travel to America and their new lives? Like Timbuktu in 1706? Clearly, the story must be quintessential American. A tale that can be told by no other country. Our system of categorizing races is unique, and our brand of slavery and Jim Crow also pretty outstanding. Are there other elements that make a tale specifically, “American?”
I’m told Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy is high in the running for the Great American Novel. It tells the downside of the American rags-to-riches, anybody can make it, tale. Would a story about American descendants of English aristocrats, white master/black servant bed play, “passing”, a humongous oil strike on black-owned land, and a land grab on a massive scale, qualify? At least tell me such elements would put a book in the running. Okay, I’ll fess up. That’s what I’m working on–The Duke of Union County. I think I can honestly say this is a tale that could happen only in America. Now will it be great? That’s up to you.
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