I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It used to be that the highest ambition of American novelists was to write 'the Great American Novel,' that great white whale of American fiction that would encompass all the American experience in one great book.
Since I can't write the greatest American novel, I'm going to write the longest American novel.
The American story is a story of great moments and dreadful moments.
The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World.
Of course I planned to write the Great American Novel; that lasted about a week, at which point I decided I had nothing to say that could possibly qualify. So I wrote a romance instead.
I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers.
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
I know America's great not because I read about it in a book but because I've seen it with my own eyes.