An Alt-List

113 Novels in reply to the New York Times (compiled with reference to recent blog reactions, etc.). A fuller explanation of this list, as well as notes on how it was compiled, appear on Starcherone Books's Starcher-Blog.


Walter Abish - How German Is It; Kathy Acker - Blood & Guts in High School; Great Expectations; David Antin – tuning; Donald Antrim – Elect Mr. Robinson For A Better World; Paul Auster – In the Country of Last Things; Jonathan Baumbach – B; Greg Bear - Blood Music; Kenneth Bernard – From the District File; R. M. Berry – Frank; Judy Budnitz – Flying Leap; Mary Burger – Sonny; Octavia Butler – Kindred; Mary Caponegro - Complexities of Intimacy; Thersesa Hak Jyung Cha – Dicteé; Sandra Cisneros – Woman Hollering Creek; Dennis Cooper – Period; Michael Cunningham – The Hours; Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves; Lydia Davis – The End of the Story; Samuel R. Delany – Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand; Bradley Denton – Blackburn; Matthew Derby – Super Flat Times; Jeffrey DeShell – Peter; Jim Dodge – Fup; Stone Junction; Ricki Ducornet – The Word “Desire”; The Fanmaker’s Inquisition; Katherine Dunn – Geek Love; Dave Eggers – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; Brian Evenson – Altmann’s Tongue; Percival Everett – Erasure; Raymond Federman – To Whom it May Concern; William Gaddis – Carpenter’s Gothic; William Gass - The Tunnel; Denise Giardina – Storming Heaven; William Gibson - Neuromancer; Robert Glück – Margery Kempe; Barry Hannah – Ray; Carla Harryman – Gardener of Stars; Marianne Hauser – Prince Ishmael; Donald Hays – The Dixie Association; Laird Hunt - The Impossibly; Shelley Jackson – The Melancholy of Anatomy; Harold Jaffe – 15 Serial Killers; Gwyneth Jones – Life; Kevin Killian – Little Men; Charles Johnson – Oxherding Tale; Stacey Levine - My Horse; DRA—; Frances Johnson; Mark Leyner – I Smell Esther Williams; Kelly Link –Magic for Beginners; Pamela Lu – Pamela: A Novel; Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs; Nathaniel Mackey – From A Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate; Ben Marcus - The Age of Wire and String; Notable American Women; David Markson - Wittgenstein's Mistress; Reader’s Block; Carole Maso - Aureole; Ava; The Art Lover; Defiance; Harry Matthews – My Life in CIA; Cris Mazza – Former Virgin; Heather McGowan – Schooling; Ursule Molinaro - Fat Skeletons; Toni Morrison – Tar Baby; Walter Mosley – Devil in a Blue Dress; Padgett Powell – Edisto; Tim Power - Last Call; Thomas Pynchon – Mason and Dixon; Vineland; Doug Rice - Blood of Mugwump; Mary Robison – Why Did I Ever; L. A. Ruocco – Document Zippo; Thaddeus Rutkowski – Tetched; James Salter- A Sport and a Pastime; George Saunders – CivilWarLand in Bad Decline; Pastoralia; Sarah Schulman – Girls, Visions, and Everything; Jason Schwartz – A German Picturesque; Joanna Scott – Arrogance: A Novel; Elizabeth Sheffield – Gone; Lucius Shepard – Beast of the Heartland; Nina Shope – Hangings; Leslie Marmon Silko – Ceremony; Almanac of the Dead; Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres; Ordinary Love and Good Will; Gilbert Sorrentino – Aberration of Starlight; Little Casino; Neal Stephenson – Quicksilver; Bruce Sterling – Schismatrix; Ronald Sukenick – Mosaic Man; Lynne Tillman - American Genius; Steve Tomasula – VAS; Joseph Torra – Gas Station; William Vollman – You Bright and Risen Angels; Europe Central; Chuck Wachtel – Joe the Engineer; Howard Waldrop – Heart of Whitenesse; Alice Walker – Possessing the Secret of Joy; David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest; Brief Interviews with Hideous Men; Joe Wenderoth - Letters to Wendy; Curtis White – Requiem: Diane Williams - Excitability; Joy Williams – The Quick and the Dead; Gene Wolfe – The Book of the New Sun; Douglas Woolf – Wall to Wall; Lidia Yuknavitch – her other mouths.