Great American Novel

Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt

Few literary terms are more hotly debated, discounted, or derided than the "Great American Novel." But while critics routinely dismiss the phrase as at best hype and as at worst exclusionary, the belief that a national literature commensurate with both the scope and the contradictions of being American persists. In this podcast Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt examine totemic works such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Toni Morrison's Beloved that have been labeled GANs, exploring their themes, forms, and reception histories, asking why, when, and how they entered the literary canon. Readers beware: there be spoilers here, and other hijinks ensue...

  1. 12/26/2025

    Engaging the Existential in Walker Percy's THE MOVIEGOER

    Send us a text Walker Percy's 1961 debut novel The Moviegoer---which shocked the literary world when it came out of nowhere to win the National Book Award against some stiff competition---may strike contemporary readers as an elusive novel. The first-person, present-tense voice feels contemporary enough, but the narrator, the New Orleans stockbroker John Bickerson "Binx" Bolling, isn't a rebel without a cause, a Bohemian adventurer, or an angry young man like many heroes of the Eisenhower/Kennedy era. Instead, he's a thirty-year-old Korean War vet in a state of ennui, living life without a sense of engagement, not necessarily adrift (he's successful enough at his job), but without a driving sense of purpose or meaning. The Moviegoer is perhaps the quintessential philosophical novel of the mid-20th century: it's about Binx and his cousin Kate's parallel quest to understand what it means to be alive. In this regard, it's an existential novel, a term that needs some defining: Percy was one of our great dramatists of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who insisted that the struggle for authenticity through lived experience was the closest path to God. The result can feel episodic and abstract, and maybe even frustrating since the New Orleans setting feels like a backdrop and not a social scene. (How exactly this novel is "Southern" is one of the great critical debates surrounding it). But Percy, a graduate of medical school, was a supreme diagnostician of the soul sickness that arose from postwar prosperity and consumerism. The Moviegoer isn't as much about popular culture but about the work it takes to feel you are the author of the movie of your life, and not the audience.    All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 24m

  2. 11/04/2025

    Episode 36: Burning Down the Days with THE FLAMETHROWERS by Rachel Kushner

    Send us a text It’s 1976. A woman named Reno in leather motorcycle gear descends upon the Bonneville Salt Flats on a state of the art Moto Valera motorcycle. Is speed her goal?  Is it the land art created by her tracks across the flats?  Is her rolling crash meant to serve as a metaphor for the next two year of her life?  In this episode your intrepid hosts return to an era and setting that at least one of them never particularly wanted to visit: the art scene of New York in the 1970s. Join us for this rousing discussion of Rachel Kushner’s 2013 novel The Flamethowers, which juxtaposes the avant garde art scene of the late seventies with motorcycle speed races, land art, and the Italian Red Brigade Movement of 1977.  When is it the message and when is it the medium? Where are the dividing lines between style and substance? Is it revolution or posture?  The Flamethrowers was a National Book Award Finalist; Kushner is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow.    The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture.  Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration.  Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter.  All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants.  Audio from the trailer for Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968, dir. Jack Cardiff, starring Marianne Faithfull. Produced by Adel Productions / Mid-Atlantic Film (Holdings). All show music is by Lobo Loco.  The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.”  For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/. We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com. All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 17m

  3. 08/10/2025

    Episode 35: Escaping War for Love in Ernest Hemingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS

    Send us a text Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms is probably the most famous war novel in American literary history. Inspired by his own wounding on the Italian front shortly before his nineteenth birthday, Hemingway tells the story of a disillusioned American serving in a foreign army, Frederic Henry, who falls in love with a Red Cross nurse, Catherine Barkley, shortly before the disastrous rout the Italians suffered at Caporetto in late 1917, which Frederic barely survives. In an epic tale that explores the tragedy of love amid combat, Hemingway offers a brutally naturalistic portrait of the Great War that somehow manages to be stylistically beautiful. In this episode we explore the biographical background of the plot, the Italian history that Hemingway managed to cull from his studies (the novel takes place before his own time in Italy), and the question of whether love and war hasn't become one of the hoarier cliches in the literature of soldiers in battle.      All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 25m

  4. 06/23/2025

    Episode 34: Riding the Rails with THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead

    Send us a text In this, our 34th episode of the Great American Novel podcast, the hosts tackle Colson Whitehead’s intriguing, interesting, and in some surprising ways challenging award-winning 2016 novel, The Underground Railroad.  This novel works with the premise that the antebellum freedom trail to the north for escaped slaves was not a series of safe houses and hiding spaces with the occasional guide, but instead an actual underground railway. How can something be in some plays completely and purposefully historically inaccurate yet also completely true at the same time?  How does our knowledge of real life slavery chronicles by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs complement and contradict the narrative here?  Why does Whitehead choose this meta-historical method rather than a straightforward narrative?    The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture.  Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration.  Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter.  All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. As always...there be spoilers here! All show music is by Lobo Loco.  The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.”  For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.  The trailer clip is from the streaming 10 episode mini-series film adaptation, The Underground Railroad, dir. Barry Jenkins for Amazon Prime Video, 2021. We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com.   All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 15m

  5. 05/18/2025

    Episode 33: Pulling Out the Mote in Flannery O'Connor's WISE BLOOD

    Send us a text More celebrated for her dark, satirical short stories, Flannery O'Connor nevertheless burst on the literary scene in 1952 in her mid-twenties with her debut novel, Wise Blood. The story of a would-be preacher resistant to God's grace, the plot features some of the most bizarre and twisted left turns in American literature: self-blindings with lye, underaged ingenues named Sabbath, stolen mummies and gorilla suits, and enough vehicular homicides and car wreckage to make one renew one's AAA membership. For most readers, Hazel Motes's struggle to reconcile divine providence with the desire for free will is a tough conservative theology lesson to swallow. In this episode we explore how O'Connor employed the trope of the grotesque in Southern fiction to make her dogmatic point, asking whether the sheer weirdness of her characters distracts from her message.   All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 17m

  6. 02/24/2025

    Episode 32: Watching the Flames from Slaughterhouse-Five

    Send us a text In Episode 32 of the Great American Novel podcast, we slip through time with Billy Pilgrim as we shuffle between the character’s experiences as a prisoner of war and first hand witness to the Dresden firebombing in World War II and then trip the light fantastic to the far flung planet Tralfamadore.  Or…do we?  Yes, this episode has your intrepid explorers hiding in Kurt Vonnegut’s masterful 1969 post-modern novel SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE. We ponder the author’s central questions: are all war novels doomed to sensationalize war?  Can you capture such a horrific experience realistically? Must we become automatons to survive wars?   The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture.  Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration.  Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter.  All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants.  Brief correction: in the episode Scott states that the protagonist of The Forever War is frozen cryogenically; this is incorrect.  He is sent to places at relativistic speed and upon returning a great deal of time has passed. All show music is by Lobo Loco.  The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.”  For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.  The trailer clips are from the film adaptation, Slaughterhouse-Five, adapted in a screenplay by Stephen Geller, dir. George Roy Hill. We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com. All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 28m

  7. 01/12/2025

    Episode 31: Crossing the Country with Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD

    Send us a text Few novels have had the cultural impact of Jack Kerouac's speed-fueled mad dash across the continent in search of kicks as On the Road. One doubts the 1960s ever would have happened had Kerouac's Beat Generation coterie not inspired a mass embrace (and mockery) of bohemian jazz culture rebelling against the conformity of Eisenhower-era conservatism and Atomic Age anxieties. This episodes explores the background of Kerouac's famous experiment in spontaneous prose, noting its affinities with both the picaresque and the roman a clef. We talk such pivotal influences as Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady and the steep price of fame the increasingly embittered Kerouac paid as he became the guru to the hipsters and hippies. And we do it all while snapping our fingers, Daddio.  All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 22m

  8. 11/10/2024

    Episode 30: Sailing on the SHIP OF FOOLS

    Send us a text A couple of weeks ago—after this episode was recorded, but before it was edited and posted—the famous author Stephen King posted online his top ten novels of all time—and among them was Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools.  This 1962 book was the first novel by Porter, a great American writer who had mostly worked in the short story genre and as a journalist and editor.  The novel tells of a German passenger liner traveling from Mexico to different ports of Europe in the 1930s.  It presents a multinational, highly varied cast of characters.  Ship of Fools received rave reviews at first, before then suffering through the obligatory critical backlash. The film rights sold for what at the time was a kaboodle of money and the movie was nominated for and received a number of Academy Awards. Hosts Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough wrestle with these questions: is this work a great American novel after all?  Are we all fools bound on an eternal quest for understanding or relevance or fares with inclusive food and drinks?  Why did the author take thirty years (almost) to finish the book? Come steam away with us as we sort it out.  Listeners are warned as always: there be spoilers here! The film audio clips are from the trailer to Ship of Fools, directed and produced in 1965 by Stanley Kramer and starring Vivien Leigh and Lee Marvin, among others.  Released by Columbia Pictures.  The show music is by Lobo Loco.  The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.”  For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/. All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.

    1h 9m
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4.9
out of 5
95 Ratings

About

Few literary terms are more hotly debated, discounted, or derided than the "Great American Novel." But while critics routinely dismiss the phrase as at best hype and as at worst exclusionary, the belief that a national literature commensurate with both the scope and the contradictions of being American persists. In this podcast Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt examine totemic works such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Toni Morrison's Beloved that have been labeled GANs, exploring their themes, forms, and reception histories, asking why, when, and how they entered the literary canon. Readers beware: there be spoilers here, and other hijinks ensue...

Information

  • Creator
    Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt
  • Show Website
    Great American Novel

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