Is there a Southern Gothic-esque equivalent for the American Midwest and Desert Southwest aka the "heartland"? Not necessarily like Westerns, but like horror or crime or thriller or surrealism, something a bit more contemporary. Think of the kind of imagery conjured up by "Badlands" or "Darkness on the Edge of Town" or something off of the Nebraska album.
Songs with lyrics for reference:
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I thought mods deleted this thread. Nebraska was a shit movie, I hope you didn't like it. Also looking for this though, would be nice to see some Midwest literature. I've been trying to write some myself.
Also, Bruce Springsteen is a Jew, not from the MIDWEST!
Talking about the Springsteen album, but I agree it was not very good.
He's catholic actually. I know he's not from the midwest but he spent plenty of time there to the point where it heavily influenced his songwriting.
Fuck, did this same thing with Charlie Rose! I'll add him to my shitty Goyim folder then.
Steinbeck's grapes of wrath. (Oklahoma is kinda where the south meets the Midwest)
Steinbeck's got a few that could meet the description, no?
Well of mice and men and the red pony are in the central valley of California, another rural heartland type setting. I haven't read everything by him and am not an authority.
Nor am I. Though I've heard Cannery Row fits that too? or maybe Travels With Charley
Cannery Row doesn't really fit in the description of a region theme. That being said, it's a lot of fun and comparatively light-hearted compared to MaM and GoW. I don't think it hits the soul-rending prose quite as hard as GoW though. Basically, a homeless guy and his friends run around monterey going on adventures and expositing a vaguely populist philosophy of Steinbeck's.
Robinson's Gilead/Home/Lila come close to this I think.
William H. Gass
...
Cormac McCarthy?
read willa cather
Yeah I know it's a fraud from an enthographer's POV but you know it's a well written book and a lot of fun to read. They all are.
bump
What the fuck does he have to do with the Midwest?
Crimes in Southern Indiana (a bit over the top, but only one I could think of)
Does In Cold Blood count? Midwest crime but writer was a southerner.
Op also asked for desert Southwest which Cormac does do.
Also I haven’t read Knockemstiff but that might fit the bill
Bump
Springsteen is amazing
Michael McDowell's novels.
Willy Vlautin's The Hotel Life came to mind. Might be what you're looking for.
I don't know how he is personally, but he's the kind of jew I can appreciate artistically
He's not jewish goddammit
(((Springstein)))
It's Springsteen. His father was dutch-irish and his mother Italian. Not even Jewish. Bob Dylan was a a Jew from Wisconsin maybe that's what's tripping you guys up.
His politics are jewish and that's just as bad.
There is no such thing a "Jewish" politics. There is Zionist and anti-zionist, but not a monolithic "Jewish" one
Bob Dylan was from the great state of Minnesota
Same thing, my bad. When someone says they're from Michigan/Wisconsin/Minnesota they all just run together as people who say "don't cha know" to me.
springsteen was the new dylan after all
Don't bother with these idiots. Anyone who doesn't bootlick their facist overlords are Jews
don't be stupid, he means jewish in the /pol/ sense of subversively kikey
Due to Germanic/Nordic[1] influence, the Midwest is mostly devoid of any culture or artistic merit, so I would count that out immediately. Chicago is somewhat saved thanks to its large Polish[2] and Affrican[3] populations. If you need proof, have a five minute conversation with anyone who proudly holds a degree from a Big-10 school[4].
[1] Both cultures of course being most famous for autism and rape/pillaging.
[2] And Slavic in general, and while I'm here I wouldn't discount the sizable Jewish population in the city as well.
[3] Before some moron from /pol/ replies with "lol niggers," I would qualify this statement by saying that the African influence is mostly seen in its music.
[4] Only referring of course to the Midwest part of the aforementioned organization: Nebraska, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan St, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or the hilariously pretentious THE Ohio State University. People from Penn St, Rutgers, and Maryland are typically well-adjusted human beings that you get when you move away from the cancer that is the Midwest. Northwestern is saved for being a rich people school and being close enough to Chicago.
>The state of discourse on this board
though set in oregon this is basically a darkness/nebraska-era springsteen song in book form
From the cover alone it looks like it
My descendants will rape/pillage yours some day you coastal scum
Galveston by Nick Pizzolato comes to mind. He’s the guy who wrote True Detective. It takes place in West Texas and has noir elements mixed with that southern gothic layering.
Ok
I admit, I'm triggered as fuck but I'm not gonna reply to this blatant attempt at bait.
Saul Bellow
Nelson Algren
Stuart Dybek
Jeff Eugenides
George Saunders
David Rhodes
Unironically DFW
Jonathan Franzen
Upton Sinclair
Sinclair Lewis
Carl Sandberg
Ray Bradbury
Edgar Lee Masters
Hamlin Garland
Joyce Carol Oates
Marilynne Robinson
Toni Morrison
Willa Cather
Sherwood Anderson
John Williams
Mark Twain
Richard Wright
I don't know. There's more. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Eliot were all from the Midwest. Burroughs.
And yes, Texas is more Midwest than it is South.
I think your assertion about Texas is highly dependant on the specific region you're talking about. Texans even assert that there are 5 unique regions of Texas each with their own style and culture.
Nah. Texas is Midwest.
you know i'm starting to believe that is right
thanks for the rec
Jesus’ Son
seconded
Saved from the last one homie
DRUDGERY EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI: MIDWEST AND ENVIRONS
Middlesex, by Eugenides
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country: And Other Stories, by William H. Gass
Jesus Son, by Denis Johnson
Selected Poems, by Carl Sandburg
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth (set in Jersey, but hey, OP has a Springsteen pic up)
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
Rain Dogs, by Sean Doolittle
The Cleanup, by Sean Doolittle
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
A Nickel's Worth of Skim Milk, by Robert J. Hastings
A Knight of Another Sort: Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger, by Gary DeNeal
Great Plains, by Ian Frazer
STRUNG ALONG A RATTLESNAKE SPEEDWAY: THE SOUTHWEST
Angels, by Denis Johnson
Dog of the South, by Charles Portis
Play it as it Lays, by Joan Didion
Essays, by Joan Didion
The Desert Rose, by Larry McMurtry
The Last Picture Show & Texasville, by Larry McMurtry
Tony Hillerman detective pulp (‘The Blessing Way’ was recommended down the list)
Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
CASCADIA FOR THE CRANIA: THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
So Much Water, So Close to Home, by Raymond Carver
NEAR MISSES?
Evenings on the Farm Near Dikanka, by Gogol
The Broom of the System (Haven’t read, can anybody vouch for this as being in line with goal?)
Edward Abbey (Though good, off the mark)
Leslie Silko (while definitely “southwest,” I wouldn’t say she matches overall with the requested vibe)
The Dark Tower Series (No)
Bastard of Istanbul, by Elif Safak (A good one, but waaay more about Armenians)
Underworld, by Don Delillo (again, this is set square in New York, so while great, iffy)
You Can’t Win, by Frank Black (just straight up Depression era stuff)
Danke
That stuff about Texas is not true. East Texas is Deep South, South Texas is Mexican, West Texas is South Western and the Panhandle is also Southern, but in a different way.
Nah.
That's cuz you're dumb.
my nigga
Rude
Crimes in Southern Indiana
Kent Haruf
Texas is honestly a really fascinating state
Strangers on a Train
OP also mentions the "Desert Southwest"
im gonna murder you dude
Why
Because he's dumb. Like I said he was.
True
I just looked it up, he’s Dutch-Irish-Italian ethnically. Was raised Catholic.
William Gass
Also the tv show Fargo
No problem famalam. How did shooting that short go for ya? Did you end up reading any of these?
Tao lin
No
Dirty White Boys
bump
Gass