American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Swede. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city's old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete.
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West.
Around quitting time, Tod Hackett heard a great din on the road outside his office. The groan of leather mingled with the jangle of iron and over ll beat the tattoo of a thousand hooves. He hurried to the window.
reco: not too long, funny, plenty of interesting symbolism
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling
as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator.
reco: Days of Abandonment is a masterful novella by perhaps the greatest living author. We haven't read many female authors & this one does females justice, more than they deserve probably.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
A Poem in Four Cantos
Canto One
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane; I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
reco: Nabokov's Pale Fire is often thought to be his best, & we haven't read any Nabokov in this club yet