All the Ms: Depressing Literature in the Ms

I play a half-joking/half-serious game with myself when I am driving. After two events of the same kind, I declare that it is a Pedestrians Running Out Into Traffic Day or Large Trunks Blocking the Way Day or Cars Coming Up Suddenly on Side Streets Day. 

With this list, I feel like I have already encountered every single Modern Depressing Life With Naval Gazing novel possible. I honestly don’t see the point of this stuff but hey, if people want to read it…

Maybe, they read it for the same reason Stephen King says people watch horror movies: to emphasize their own normality. 

Or not. 

Haven’t a clue. 

The list below is a sample. However, in fairness, though all the books are contemporary and all the books are about life being a pain, blah blah blah, some of them look...not so bad. 

Nicholas Mancusi: A Philosophy of Ruin is about a guy whose Mom dies and he somehow gets into drugs. It’s such a boring premise, it makes my brain hurt.

Emily St. John Mandel: The Glass Hotel starts with random sentences on a page, then skips to a character who is depressed and self-conscious and whose narrative is interrupted by discussions with a therapist…and I forced myself to read 10 pages. 

Becky Mandelbaum: The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals starts with a dozen cliches about redneck hicks in Kansas—but that’s kind of the point. That is, there is a difference between the author inserting cliches to force a conclusion and an author speaking out of the head of a character. The difference is the difference between sermonizing and art. Mandelbaum is writing art. 

Lee Mandelo: Feed Them Silence is about a woman who gets a grant to link herself to wolves while her marriage is falling apart. To be honest, I found the animal concept gripping. But failed marriages bore me, including lesbian marriages. And I thought the protagonist’s wife’s lectures were so nauseating, I couldn’t figure out why the protagonist (however flawed) married her in the first place.  

Marina Mander: The First True Lie is about a boy who is now a “half-orphan” since his father died. The boy’s voice comes across as quite authentic (not a term I enjoy using, but this list calls for the term).