The best novels set in the 1960s and 70s

Dog Soldiers made me want to become a writer. It showed me how to marry plot and character and still write about things that matter. A novel of ideas masquerading as a crime story, it tells of a massive drug deal gone bad, with the Vietnam War and its bitter illusions in the background. If you love complicated characters, this is your kind of book. Stone draws them with good and evil mixed. Your feelings for them shift by the page. The book contains startling images and vivid dialogue, as the characters weigh their decisions against a moral code they no longer trust. If you’re curious about what the 1970s really felt like—or lived through it yourself—Dog Soldiers will take you in and leave you shaking.

I’ve always loved how Philip Roth populates his fiction with transgressors. It’s hard not to envy their boldness, bad as they may be. Narrated by Roth’s stand-in, bad boy Nathan Zuckerman, American Pastoral focuses on Zuckerman’s high school idol, ‘Swede’ Levov. Swede’s triumphs on the sporting field and later in business, anoint him for a life marked by pure American success. His inevitable fall from grace feels moving and tragic and infuriating. Swede can’t comprehend how his darling teenage daughter has become an anti-Viet Nam War terror bomber, responsible for bystander death. No happy lessons here. Read American Pastoral if you like books that leave you with as many questions as answers—the way life does.

Here’s a novel deeply perfumed with pot smoke and paranoia. Filled with Pynchon’s trademark puns, odd character names, and odder characters, it’s his most accessible novel, a detective story set in the early 1970s. Its main character, P.I. Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello, has the sleepy air of a confirmed stoner, but he’s dogged in following leads in the disappearance of an old girlfriend and her former lover. If you find yourself in a state of confusion about what’s going on, relax, Sportello’s confused, too. I love the book’s hodgepodge of 70s memorabilia: Hawaiian shirts, check; random psychedelia, check; free love, check; political conspiracies, double-check. Doc himself would tell you not to fuss about what makes sense or not. The point is, the ride itself is worth the trip.

I love how this book is written. It’s lyrical and deeply felt with a keen eye and luminous prose. Told from her middle-aged perspective, it’s the story of 14-year-old Evie and the summer she dallied, first at the outskirts, and then at dead center of a Charles Manson-like clan. Evie’s a lonely innocent drawn to the sexy and audacious Suzanne who is closest to the leader, Russell. All the women revere Russell, and Evie performs as required: sex, thievery, nighttime home invasions, initially just for fun. The book captures the grunge and the glory of its late-1960s setting, the ragged hope for a better world. Evie longs for connection and would follow Suzanne anywhere, even to murder. I followed along, too, fearing for Evie and wishing her well.

The utopian dreams of the 60s died hard, and this beautiful novel captures the mood of the decade—and the forces that destroyed it. Set mostly in a back-to-the-land hippie community, the book centers on Bit, the first baby born to the settlers. It follows him through childhood and adolescence, and checks in on him on the cusp of middle age, a single father in New York City. Bit’s a sensitive soul, and I felt for him, especially when the story tracked his relationship with his first lover and later runaway wife, the self-destructive Helle. Groff’s expressive use of language, her feel for the natural world, and her deep sensitivity to the psychology of her characters marks this book as a classic not to be missed.