If this list of books sounds like it would make for a great class, that’s because it is! These books form the core of an American Novels Since 1900 class that I teach at the University of Northern Iowa. I didn’t choose them initially because they mess with time, but after teaching them for a number of years, I couldn’t help but notice the ways in which they spoke to one another, and I guess I couldn’t help but be influenced by them as well.
By Jim O'Loughlin
The Cord is a science fiction novel that follows life along both ends of a space elevator that connects an orbiting space station to an equatorial island. The story is told in a reverse narrative format that emphasizes the fragile but essential ties across generations. It is a book that messes with time, and I’ve been influenced by some great books which, appropriately, are listed here in reverse chronological order.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan’s 2011 novel (and its 2022 sibling novel, The Candy House) take readers back and forth through the recent past and near future as we drop in on the lives of characters at different turning points in their lives. Each chapter takes readers in a new direction that deepens, complicates, or thoroughly upends our sense of characters. It makes for breathtaking reading.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Octavia E. Butler
In some ways, Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel is a conventional time travel narrative, but Butler’s investigation of American slavery and its lasting impact was prescient. Moving between the antebellum south and 1970s Los Angeles, Kindred implicitly asks us to consider the similarities and differences between the two worlds. Butler is both perceptive and generous in her ability to create and help readers understand flawed characters.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut’s breakthrough 1969 novel does not respect the rules that govern most novels. He combines memoir and fiction, uses humor to describe grimly serious wartime conditions of WWII Dresden, and shatters the boundary between literary fiction and science fiction. Vonnegut’s protagonist also regularly slips in and out of time, appearing in different parts of his own life without warning or apparent pattern. All this sounds like it should be confusing, but Vonnegut’s accessible prose and careful craftsmanship make it a surprisingly accessible read.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By William Faulkner
While no one would call Faulkner’s 1929 masterpiece “a surprisingly accessible read,” it remains a landmark of modernism and one of the finest examples of stream of consciousness prose. Faulkner takes readers deep into the minds of his perspective characters, showing the ways they think in real-time as they navigate a day while consumed by past traumas, unstable identities, and inherited historical burdens.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Willa Cather
This may be the most surprising pick on my list. While Cather’s 1918 novel has been celebrated as a classic of midwestern literature and as an insightful feminist critique (rightly, in both cases), but it is also a book that is obsessed with memory and time. How, if at all, do we preserve memories of the times that shaped us? Does the passage of time diminish memories or give them iconic status? Does writing preserve or distort that which has happened? This is a book that can be read at any age, but the more you think about it, the more complicated it becomes.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
