Classics about the US

Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer for the south post-Civil War.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird for the south in the Great Depression.
John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men for the west in the Great Depression.
James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice for a different take on California in the same period.
Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for the southwest during westward expansion and conflict with Mexico.
Scott Fitzgerald –The Great Gatsby. “The great American novel”
Black Like Me. To understand the US South, Journalist John Howard Griffin disguised himself as a black man and traveled for six weeks in the South in 1959.
A Confederacy of Dunces, though written in the 60’s,still seems relevant to what the US became
American Tabloid by James Elroy, for the look into the evils of anticommunism.
My Antonia (Willa Cather) will drop you right onto the prairies of Nebraska in the late 19th century to observe the life of a Bohemian immigrant family (and specifically their daughter, Antonia) through the eyes of a boy from Virginia who moved to Nebraska to live with his grandparents when he was orphaned. It’s the American immigrant/melting pot experience via a poignant coming of age tale.