Size matters in American letters. Always has. While the French might prefer a slim, neurotic novella and the Russians lean toward existential gloom, the vibe for American authors go big or go home is baked into the DNA of the country. It’s about the land. The ambition. The absolute audacity of trying to capture a continental-sized identity between two pieces of cardboard and some glue.
You see it in the way we talk about the "Great American Novel." It’s a ghost we’ve been chasing since the 1800s.
Honestly, it’s kinda exhausting. But it’s also why we have some of the most towering, messy, and brilliant pieces of art in human history.
The Myth of the Maximalist Writer
Back in 1868, a guy named John William De Forest coined the term "Great American Novel." He was basically complaining that nobody had actually written the definitive American story yet. He wanted something that captured the "ordinary daily sentiments" of the whole nation.
That’s a tall order.
Since then, the mentality that American authors go big or go home has led to what critics call "Maximalism." This isn't just about page count, though 1,000-page bricks are definitely part of the aesthetic. It's about an appetite. It’s about trying to cram every single thing—politics, religion, breakfast cereal brands, technical manuals, and family trauma—into a single narrative arc.
Think about Herman Melville. Moby-Dick isn't just a story about a guy who hates a whale. It's an encyclopedia of whaling. It’s a philosophical treatise. It’s a play. It’s a poem. Melville didn’t just write a book; he tried to build a universe. He went big. He almost went home, too—the book was a massive flop during his lifetime and he died largely forgotten.
That’s the risk.
Why We Love the Heavyweights
There’s a specific kind of clout that comes with a thick book. Carrying a copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace or The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is a statement. It says the author had enough to say to justify killing a small forest, and the reader has the stamina to follow them.
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But it's not just a vanity project.
The American experience is fragmented. We aren't a monolith. So, for an author to truly capture "America," they often feel like they have to use a wide-angle lens. Look at Thomas Pynchon. His books are dense, paranoid, and frequently over 700 pages. In Gravity's Rainbow, he links the V-2 rocket program to occultism, Pavlovian conditioning, and slapstick humor.
It’s messy. Life is messy.
If you look at Toni Morrison’s Beloved, it’s not as long as a Pynchon novel, but the "bigness" is in the emotional and historical weight. She’s tackling the systemic horror of slavery and its psychological haunting. You can’t do that in a breezy 120 pages. You have to go deep. You have to be willing to overwhelm the reader.
The Mid-Century Titans
In the 1950s and 60s, the "Big Book" was the ultimate status symbol for the "Great Male Novelist." Names like Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth dominated the scene. They were writing about the American century.
Mailer, in particular, lived the American authors go big or go home lifestyle. He didn't just write novels; he ran for Mayor of New York, got into fights, and wrote The Executioner’s Song, a true-crime "novel" that’s over 1,000 pages long. He wanted to be the biggest voice in the room.
It was a competitive sport.
The New Guard and the Death of the "Big" Novel?
People keep saying the long novel is dead. They say our attention spans are fried by TikTok and 15-second reels. They say nobody has time for a book that requires a gym membership to lift.
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They’re wrong.
Actually, the "Big" novel is having a massive resurgence, but the voices are different now. We’re seeing writers like Donna Tartt, whose The Goldfinch became a global phenomenon despite (or because of) its 700+ pages. Or Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, which is an absolute mountain of a book that readers obsessed over on social media.
Even in the digital age, there’s something about a physical object that demands weeks of your life. It’s a commitment. In a world of fleeting digital content, a 900-page book is an act of rebellion.
The "Go Big" Mechanics: How They Do It
How does an author actually pull this off without it being a total slog? It usually comes down to a few specific techniques:
- The Digression: Taking 50 pages to explain how a specific type of engine works or the history of postage stamps.
- The Multi-POV: Jumping between 10 different characters to show how a single event ripples through a whole city.
- The Maximalist Sentence: Sentences that run for half a page, connected by commas and "and," trying to mimic the rush of consciousness.
Look at Don DeLillo’s Underworld. It starts with a famous baseball game in 1951 and ends with the internet. It connects the Cold War, garbage disposal, and J. Edgar Hoover. It’s a tapestry. If he’d cut 400 pages, the connections would have vanished. The "bigness" is the point.
What Happens When You Go Home (The Failures)
Not every big book is a masterpiece.
Some are just... bloated. We've all started that one novel that everyone raved about, only to realize by page 300 that the author is just talking to hear their own voice. There’s a fine line between a "sprawling epic" and a "poorly edited draft."
A lot of 19th-century authors got paid by the word or the installment (looking at you, Dickens, even though you’re British, the influence was there). American authors sometimes fall into the trap of thinking length equals importance. It doesn't.
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If there’s no heart at the center of the 800 pages, the reader is going to check out. You can’t just go big; you have to go big with a purpose.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader and Writer
If you’re looking to dive into the world where American authors go big or go home, or if you’re an aspiring writer trying to tackle your own "big" project, here’s how to handle the weight.
For the Reader:
- Don’t rush. These books aren't designed to be "binged" in a weekend. Treat them like a marathon. Read 20 pages a day.
- Use a physical bookmark. There is a psychological win in seeing that bookmark move through a thick spine.
- Give yourself permission to skip. Honestly? If an author spends 40 pages on the genealogy of a minor character who dies in the next chapter, it’s okay to skim. Even the greats have fluff.
For the Writer:
- Outline the "Hubs." If you're going for a massive word count, you need anchor points. You can't just wing 200,000 words. You need to know where the major emotional payoffs are.
- Vary the scale. A big book needs small moments. If every scene is "epic," nothing is. Contrast the geopolitical shifts with a character eating a sandwich alone.
- Kill your darlings, but keep the weird stuff. The best big American novels are famous for their quirks. Don't edit out the soul just to hit a word count.
The tradition of the oversized American novel isn't going anywhere. As long as the US remains a place of huge contradictions and massive geography, we’re going to have writers trying to capture it all in one go. It’s a beautiful, doomed, necessary ambition.
Go find a book that looks like it could double as a doorstop. Open it. See if the author actually went big, or if they should have stayed home.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Knowledge
To truly understand this literary phenomenon, start by reading a "gateway" maximalist novel like The Goldfinch or East of Eden. These provide the scope without being as intentionally difficult as Pynchon or Wallace. Alternatively, track the evolution of the Great American Novel through the works of William Faulkner, specifically Absalom, Absalom!, to see how Southern Gothic traditions contributed to the "go big" mentality through complex sentence structures and multi-generational timelines.