Do you know who to trust?
Explore who to trust through powerful fiction and poetry. From Ellison's *Invisible Man* to Kerouac's *Tristessa* and Steinbeck's *The Grapes of Wrath*, this curated list delves into themes of deception, loyalty, and human connection—perfect for readers questioning authority and authenticity.
Book
Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
The account of a young writer and his friends in free-wheeling Paris.
Book
Tristessa
by Jack Kerouac
Based on Jack Kerouac's own real-life love affair in Mexico City, this is the story of a man's ill-fated relationship with a woman he portrays with tenderness and dignity, even as her life spirals out of control "Each book by Jack Kerouac is unique, a telepathic diamond. With prose set in the middle of his mind, he reveals consciousness itself in all its syntatic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later half XX century, a synthesis of Proust, Céline, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker, and Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. "This entire short novel Tristessa's a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuaha dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, & pads at dawn in Mexico City slums." —Allen Ginsberg
Book
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
The saga of a family in 1939 that struggles through the Great Depression by laboring as Dust Bowl migrants.
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Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years He describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood," before retreating amid violence and confusion. Originally published in 1952 as the first novel by a then unknown author, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, James Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
