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Home , Don DeLillo, Frank Chin, House Made of Dawn, James Alan McPherson, John Cheever, John Edgar Wideman

Contemporary Fiction Core List

Required Primary Texts:

1. : The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) 2. : “Sonny’s ” (1957) & Another Country (1962) 3. : The House on Mango Street (1984) 4. Don DeLillo: (1985) 5. : (1952) 6. Ernest J. Gaines: A Lesson Before Dying (1993) 7. Joseph Heller: Catch 22 (1961) 8. : The Woman Warrior (1976) 9. : (1987) 10. Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried (1990) 11. Flannery O’Connor—stories: “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” “Good Country People” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” “Everything That Rises Must Converge” “A Late Encounter With the Enemy” “The Displaced Person” “The Lame Shall Enter First” “The Comforts of Home” “A Stroke of Good Fortune” “Parker’s Back” 12. : Mumbo Jumbo (1972) 13. : (1997) 14. : (1977) 15. : (1982)

EXPANDED PRIMARY CORE (BOLD = REQUIRED CORE 15; SELECT 5 OTHER TEXTS/TEXT- GROUPINGS TO COMPLETE PRIMARY CORE LIST OF 20)

1. : How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) 2. Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) 3. James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues” (1957) & Another Country (1962) 4. : Gorilla, My Love (stories, 1972) or The Salt Eaters (novel, 1980) 5. : Lost in the Funhouse (stories, 1968) or The Sot-Weed Factor (novel, 1960) 6. : (1964) 7. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1951) 8. Octavia Butler: Bloodchild (stories, 1995) or (novel, 1979) 9. —stories: “Errand” “A Small Good Thing” (and “The Bath”) “Cathedral” “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” “Where I’m Calling From” “Popular Mechanics” “So Much Water So Close To Home” “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” “Popular Mechanics” “Vitamins” and “Neighbors” 10. —stories: “Goodbye, My Brother” “The Enormous Radio” “The Season of Divorce” “O Youth and Beauty!” “The Five-Forty-Eight” “The Country Husband” “The Swimmer” “Reunion” “The Sorrows of Gin” “Christmas Is A Sad Season For the Poor” 11. : The Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co. (1988) 12. Sandra Cisneros: The House on Mango Street (1984) 13. : (1998) 14. Don DeLillo: White Noise (1985) 15. Junot Diaz: Drown (stories, 1996) or The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (novel, 2007) 16. : Play It As It Lays (1970) 17. E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime (1975) 18. Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1952) 19. : Tracks (1988) 20. Ernest J. Gaines: A Lesson Before Dying (1993) 21. Joseph Heller: Catch 22 (1961) 22. : Play Song of Love (1989) 23. Shirley Jackson: The Lottery (stories, 1949) or The Haunting of Hill House (novel, 1959) 24. : Jesus’ Son (1992) or Tree of Smoke (2007) 25. Edward P. Jones: Lost in the City (stories, 1993) or (novel, 2003) 26. Jack Kerouac: On (1957) 27. : One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) 28. Jerzy Kosiński: The Painted Bird (1965) 29. Jamaica Kincaid: At the Bottom of the River (stories, 1983) or Annie John (novel, 1985) 30. Maxine Hong Kingston: The Woman Warrior (1976) 31. Chang-Rae Lee: Native Speaker (1995) 32. Lee: (1960) 33. David Leavitt: The Lost Language of Cranes (1986) 34. Cormac McCarthy: Blood (1985) 35. Carson McCullers: The Ballad of the Sad Café (novella & stories, 1951) or The Member of the Wedding (novel, 1961) 36. James Alan McPherson: Elbow Room (1977) 37. N. Scott Momaday: (1968) 38. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987) 39. : The Beggar Maid (1978) 40. : Lolita (1955) 41. Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried (1990) 42. Flannery O’Connor—stories: “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” “Good Country People” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” “Everything That Rises Must Converge” “A Late Encounter With the Enemy” “The Displaced Person” “The Lame Shall Enter First” “The Comforts of Home” “A Stroke of Good Fortune” “Parker’s Back” 43. Tillie Olsen: Tell Me A Riddle (1961) 44. : The Shawl (1989) 45. Grace Paley: Enormous Changes At The Last Minute (1974) 46. : (1961) 47. Ann Petry: The Street (1946) 48. Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar (1963) 49. : The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) 50. Ishmael Reed: Mumbo Jumbo (1972) 51. : Housekeeping (1981) 52. Philip Roth: American Pastoral (1997) 53. JD Salinger: Catcher in the Rye (novel, 1951) or Nine Stories (stories, 1953) 54. Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony (1977) 55. : “The Way We Live Now” (story, 1986) & (novel, 1999) 56. : (1971) 57. : The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) 58. : Rabbit, Run (1960) 59. Alice Walker: The Color Purple (1982) 60. : Infinite Jest (1996) 61. : The Optimist’s Daughter (novel, 1972) or select stories, including: “Why I Live At The P.O.,” “Petrified Man,” “The Worn Path,” and “Where Is The Voice Coming From?” 62. : Fire (1990) 63. : Slaughterhouse Five (1969)

64. Hisaye Yamamoto: Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories (1988) 65. : Revolutionary Road (1961)

Required Secondary Texts:

1. Charles Baxter – Burning Down the House 2. Wayne Booth – The Rhetoric of Fiction 3. Janet Burroway – Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft 4. E.M. Forster – Aspects of the Novel 5. John Gardner – The Art of Fiction, On Moral Fiction, On Becoming a 6. David Lodge – The Art of Fiction 7. Vladimir Nabokov – Lectures on Literature 8. Flannery O’Connor – Mystery and Manners 9. – 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel 10. – How Fiction Works