I'm kinda obsessed with the idea of people writing just one novel and it being so good that it instantly launches them into timeless reputation, especially given how the usual image of authors in everyone's heads is geniuses who don't get the respect they deserve
For example, Oscar Wilde only wrote The Picture of Dorian Grey and it is now one of the most famous books ever. Giving that example to illustrate that it is fine if said author wrote other things like plays, but just one novel. Sylvia Plath wrote poems but only one novel, The Bell Jar. JD Salinger wrote short stories but only one novel, The Catcher In The Rye. Margaret Mitchell wrote journalistic articles but only one novel, Gone With The Wind. Harper Lee didn't even write anything but To Kill A Mockingbird (yes ik it has a sequel, but that was a scrapped draft released when she was 89 by greedy publishers)
I am obsessed with that idea, their stories. It feels so badass in a way ykwim. And I have read the ones mentioned and I genuinely love these books, so I wanna try more from one-novel authors and see if I'd like those too
by Lesbihun
4 Comments
*A Confederacy of Dunces*, John Kennedy Toole. Pulitzer prize-winning book; very sad life of the author.
*Doctor Zhivago*, Boris Pasternak. Absolutely brilliant, heartbreaking novel (won the Nobel) but the controversy surrounding the book was bonkers! Now, Pasternak was also a poet, composer, and wrote short stories, but I THINK *Zhivago* was his only novel. Could be wrong.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Poe
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
(Too be fair, she might have written more if she had not died young.)
The leopard