Great American Novel

Your advice to the author of the Great American Novel:

• Put it on the border between states, at the intersection of cultures that clash.

• Show the hero going from rock-bottom to the top in terms of economic status... or have him fail first, and THEN succeed.

• Show a universal life struggle.

• The hero should never give up, no matter what.

• Have three characters of different socio-economic classes interact, and see how they change in relation to each other.

• Both sides of America, with both the benefits and drawbacks of our society

• Big corporations vs. individuals

• Make the story not too ordinary, but believable.

• How about a time travel novel, so that characters from different times in American history confront each other?

• Or Boomer v. Zoomer, confronting each other's values?

• Make the novel about freedom, and what it means to be free.

• How about the story of an immigrant and his/her process of assimilation?

• What if it's a dozen diverse protagonists, from every part of the country?

• How about, finally, a woman as the main character?!!!

• Rock and roll, man. Or Jazz. But definitely music.

• Sarcasm and humor

• Confrontation between the values of love and money

• Unreliable narrator

• Cultural appropriation

• Exploitation of the vulnerable

Among the four books you read this year, which one best fulfills the criteria you composed? Which is the Great American Novel?