Must-Read
Best Comic-Literary Novels
Comic-literary is the contemporary American register that produces fiction laughing at the world while doing serious literary work. The right comic-literary novel is sharper than satire and warmer than irony. These eight are the books our editors recommend when readers want serious fiction that is also actually funny.
8 books on this list.
Deacon King Kongby James McBride
5.0“Deacon King Kong by James McBride 2020 review. An elderly deacon at a Brooklyn housing project shoots a local drug dealer in the face in September 1969. Oprah Book Club 2020 and the canonical contemporary American comic-literary novel.”
Lincoln in the Bardoby George Saunders
5.0“Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 2017 review. Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son Willie dies and Lincoln returns to the Georgetown cemetery. The Bardo is populated by the cemetery's reluctant dead. Man Booker Prize 2017.”
The Good Lord Birdby James McBride
5.0“The Good Lord Bird by James McBride 2013 review. A twelve-year-old enslaved boy falls in with John Brown in 1856 Kansas and is dressed as a girl named Onion through Harpers Ferry. National Book Award 2013.”
Jamesby Percival Everett
5.0“James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.”
Yellowfaceby R. F. Kuang
5.0“Yellowface by R. F. Kuang 2023 review. A struggling white novelist witnesses the accidental death of her successful Asian-American novelist friend and steals her unfinished manuscript. Kuang's contemporary satirical novel about race and publishing.”
Calypsoby David Sedaris
5.0“Calypso by David Sedaris 2018 review. Twenty-one essays organized around Sedaris's Emerald Isle beach house and the death of one sister. Sedaris's most ambitious essay collection and the late-career return to form.”
Lessons in Chemistryby Bonnie Garmus
4.0“Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 2022 review. Elizabeth Zott, a chemist pushed out of academic research in the early 1960s, becomes the unlikely host of a hit cooking show. A debut novel that became the basis for the Apple TV+ adaptation with Brie Larson.”
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Storeby James McBride
5.0“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 2023 review. A 1972 skeleton found at the bottom of a Pottstown, Pennsylvania well sends the novel back to a 1930s neighborhood where Black, Jewish, and immigrant families lived alongside each other. The most important American novel of 2023.”