A lot of great American novels have been picked--but there are a few still out there, fortunately. In the category of
American, team
Bartleby and the Scriveners are pleased to select
The U.S.A. Trilogy by
John Dos Passos.
Dos Passos is more well known for
The Manhattan Transfer, but it's pretty clear that he himself saw
U.S.A. as more or less the magnum opus of his very fraught literary life. It can be criticized as in many ways nearly incoherent, but it was also experimental for a novel of its time, anticipating many techniques of fiction that would be used by other novelists later in the century.
U.S.A. follows particular characters, like any novel would--but as its title suggests, it attempts to arrive at some conclusion about the economic reality of America itself. It is formally innovative, dense, long, complex--but most importantly, it is rip-roaringly good, far better than his more famous, but far less complex
Manhattan Transfer.