Good 1930's novels?

[Kathleen'sMeg43]

Hi!

So my favorite vintage era is the 1930's and I have found with another of my favorites the 1910's that a great way to learn about the era is through novels of the day.

Lately I've been really enjoying some old Fred and Ginger movies, so lets say I wanted to read a book that was along those lines, what would you suggest?

I know that wouldn't be much of a true picture of real life, so I'm also looking for something true to life as well.

Thanks in advance!!
Meg

Ps. I prefer a happy ending.

 

[Mabel]

Well then I won't recommend The Grapes of Wrath.

I would recommend, however, The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett. The movies made, with William Powell and Myrna Loy, are delightful, but the book is even more so. It's witty and funny.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. One of my favorite novels, it's the story of a fiercely independent southern black woman during the depression.

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. It's about a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Florida during the depression in order to survive. This is a very true to life book, and it's a bit dark. It's mostly about desperation. But it is a fantastic read, Hemingway was an awesome writer.

Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham. This is a satire of literary society in London between the wars. It's witty, sharp, and ironical.

 

[I Adore Film Noir]

I recommend books by author Raymond Chandler; The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely are the only ones at the top of my head.

Oops, I believe they're set in the '40's, is that okay?

 

[skyvue]

The Big Sleep just makes it under the wire: It was published in 1939.

Chandler wrote many short stories in the 1930s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

An interesting thing about literature in the thirties is that the best-selling novels of the decade rarely if ever had anything to do with what the popular image of the decade has become, the glossy art-deco Fred-n-Ginger world. The most popular novels of the era were either sprawling historical epics like Anthony Adverse or Gone With The Wind, tales of foreign cultures like The Good Earth, "inspirational" novels set in small towns, like the works of Lloyd Douglas or A. J. Cronin, or gritty social realism like the works of John Steinbeck.

The glossy, glittery thirties will mostly be found in genre fiction -- detective novels like those mentioned, and also humorous books like those of P. G. Wodehouse or Thorne Smith. Smith's stories had a reputation for being "spicy" but they were also very funny tales of upper-middle-class-twit life: there's always at least one character in a Smith novel who could be perfectly portrayed by Edward Everett Horton.

 

[Mystic]

Hi LizzieMaine...Your PM box is full to over flowing. You must have said something very good or something very bad.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If you aren't pleasing half the audience and outraging the rest, you aren't doing your job. Anyway, space cleared.

 

[dhermann1]

"Call it Sleep" by Henry Roth, 1934. It will tear your heart out.

 

[Kathleen'sMeg43]

Wow! I expected to get on here and have maybe one or two replies! Thanks all! I'll certainly check those out.

(and yes, the 40's are fine too)

 

[Rathdown]

President Fu Manchu, by Sax Rohmer, published in 1936, number 8 of the 13 Fu Manchu novels penned by Rohmer. A gripping story set in America; full of secret tunnels, exploding sky scrapers (!), and a plot with enough twists to cripple a snake...

 

[lolly_loisides]

I like the Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novels by Dorothy L Sayers (especially "Gaudy Night" and "Busman's Honeymoon"). "The Pursuit of Love" & "Love in a Cold Climate" by Nancy Mitford (set in England between 1920's to 1940's) are really enjoyable. I also really like "Harp in the South" and "A Poor Man's Orange" by Ruth Park.

 

[Deleted member 16736]

Anything by Cornell Woolrich.

 

[vitanola]

"The Late George Apley" a "Novel in the form or a Memoir" by John P. Marquand. WONDERFUL!

Marquand was until then known primarily for magazine fiction and for his "Mr. Moto" series.

"Archys Life of Mehitabel" by Don Marquis is lovely,

"Lucy Gayheart" by Willa Cather would be highly recommended.


One MUST read Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" at some time in one's life.

"The Flivver King" and "The Way Out" by Upton Sinclair are well worthwhile.

then of course we have the famous novels of the period, including Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind", Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", and Henry Allen's "Anthony Adverse"

 

[Touchofevil]

Eric Ambler who wrote a number of espionage/spy-type novels or Georges Simenon of Maigret fame are entertaining choices.

 

[Benzadmiral]

There's always detective authors Ellery Queen and Rex Stout. The first Ellery novel appeared in 1929, and by the time the Thirties were over his creators had mellowed him from a polysyllabic bookworm to a modern American intellectual with a sense of humor. Try The Egyptian Cross Mystery (1932), The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933), and the collection The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (1938 or so?), esp. the novelet "The Lamp of God" and the short story "Mind over Matter." A little later in the Thirties, Ellery goes to Hollywood for two novels. The second, The Four of Hearts (1938), is top-notch stuff, and includes some of that screwball-comedy stuff that turns up in the Thin Man Powell/Loy movies.

The early Rex Stout stories about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are good too. Try The League of Frightened Men (1935) and Too Many Cooks (1938).

And if you want a British take on the world between the wars, there's Before the Fact by Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley), the basis for the Hitchcock movie Suspicion (but with a totally different, and much better, ending). It's one of the best jobs of sheer characterization I've ever read.

 

[Two Types]

For Britain in the 1930s, Patrick Hamilton is the first choice: (Hangover Square, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky).

'Wide Boys Never Work' by Robert Westerby.

Loads of others, can't think of the titles right now.

 

[Chasseur]

Some of my favorites: Evelyn Waugh; Sommerset Maughan's short stores, especially his spy stories with Ashenden; Mikhail Bugakov (Master and Margarita); Fitzgerald's work, especially Tender is the Night and his short stories of the late 1920s and early 1930s; similar for Hemingway, Farewell to Arms and his short stories of that time; EM Forester's Passage to India is from the 1920s but its an excellent read; the novels of Camus come later in the 1940s but also very well worth reading; Chandler's Big Sleep; Dashiell Hammett's novels are fun; so are George Simenon's; I enjoy Thomas Mann as well, but Confessions of Felix Krull was not published until the 1950s; hmm there must be more I can think of...

 

[Albert.Tatlock]

EF Benson and his Stories of English country life in the 1930's Lucia & miss Mapp

[video=youtube;OU8ysRWwYmE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU8ysRWwYmE[/video]

 

[ron521]

"Lost Horizon" is about survivors of a plane crash in the Himalayas, was made into a very popular movie in the late '30s. It's a good read.
"Grapes of Wrath" is about a family from Oklahoma trying to reach California to find work, and is fairly good.
"Tobacco Road" about poor sharecroppers in depression era Georgia, was also made into a film, but while the film is rather comedic, the novel is somewhat depressing.

"Out of Africa" by Isak Dinsen was written in 1937 is a memoir of life in British East Africa during the 20's.
"Flame Trees of Thika" and "The Mottled Lizard", both by Elspeth Huxley, were actually written in the late 50's/early 60's, but deal with the same region a bit earlier, during the WW1 era, so would still be appropriate reading.

 

[MillersCrossing]

The 30s era has unfortunately fallen into neglect because many people tend to leap from the 20s, which had all the glamour of the Jazz age and the flappers, to the post-war 40s, which is very well represented in film and literature. Of course, the main social event of the 30s was the Great Depression, and people were largely preoccupied with keeping body and soul together. The result of this was a very strong socialist movement in the US and much of this thinking can be found in the literature of the day, which was very much preoccupied with the woes of the working man (although by no means exclusively). Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a famous example of this.

The good news is that difficult social conditions often results in great art, so there are many excellent writers from this period. One of the great Depression era writers, now sadly neglected, is Nelson Algren. I can highly recommend The Man With the Golden Arm, Never Come Morning and Somebody in Boots, (the latter in particular is informed by the Depression and is largely autobiographical). Bear in mind these are strong meat, particularly Never Come Morning. Beautiful books all.

The other guy who is very much a product of this era is the great Henry Miller. Tropic of Capricorn is set in New York during the 30s, as is his classic trilogy Sexus, Nexus and Plexus and his collection of stories, Black Spring. Tropic of Cancer is Paris in the 30s. All highly recommended, although once again - strong meat! So be warned.

There are also a few others, like James T Farrell's Studs Lonigan and the works of John Dos Passos, particularly his epic work USA.

All good stuff!