Definitely Red Harvest, also Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key.
Charles Finley’s The Circus of Dr. Lao, a marvelous 1935 fantasy which prefigured all the later “spooky circus” novels, only it’s FUNNY
Dorothy B. Hughes’s In a Lonely Place, (1947) one of the best serial killer novels ever
Ann Petry’s The Street, (1946) first bestseller by an African-American woman, will rip your heart right out of your chest
You’re going to get a lot of pushback on that. In my experience, whenever people talk about the/a “Great American Novel” or “American Literature” they mean the USA.
Plus Canadians are justifiably proud of Margaret Atwood and would probably not appreciate her being considered American.
William March’s Company K (1933). Generally considered the best piece of American literature to arise from the Great War, consists of 113 vignettes from POV of 113 U.S. Marines — some horrific, some containing offbeat, black humor. Compare to Catch-22.
The Man with the Golden Arm (1949). Nobody reads Nelson Algren any more, I don’t know why. A compulsive piece of mid-century realism, set on seedy Division Street, Chicago. Frankie Machine is a hell of a guy.
Henry Kessring’s The Cook (1965). Short, darkly humorous novel culminating in horror. Shirley Jackson would have been proud to have written it.
I like everything by Jim Harrison, especially Dalva (1988) and *The Road Home *(1998)
The great majority of novels by John D. MacDonald (especially the Travis McGee series).
Early to mid career novels by Lawrence Block (including such works as “When The Sacred Ginmill Closes”).
Also Dashiell Hammett.
If we’re including non-fiction, books by Erik Larsen (“Isaac’s Storm” is far and away his best).
Maybe I’m impatient, but I prefer novellas to novels. 
Here are some good ones:
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
The Pearl, by John Steinbeck
Call of the Wild, by Jack London
Bartleby, the Scrivener, by Herman Melville
[del]The Quiet American, by Graham Greene[/del] . . Oops – Greene is English, not American
Gone Fishin’, by Walter Mosley
Little Women
William Gaddis, The Recognitions and A Frolic of His Own.
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
Russell Banks, Continental Drift
Recent: Richard Powers, The Overstory.
Well, I know that Atwood is Canadian. I almost called the thread “non-Brit lit,” just so I could include* My Brilliant Career.*
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Ender’s Game Orson Scott Card
Tender is the Night Fitzgerald
Witness Whitaker Chambers
Charlotte’s Web
In that case, there are some well-known American classics like Maria Chapdelaine…
Let me also put in A Confederacy of Dunces
Add to that, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
Also two of his others, Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan.
Nit-pick: Charles Finney. Original edition had surreal illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff, which apparently were omitted from later editions :smack:
Also: The Cat In The Hat by Everyone-Knows-Who !
Oops, “Finley” was a spellcheck typo, sorry.
If you can still buy the University of Nebraska Press Speculative Fiction reprint, it contains the (superlative) Artzybasheff illustrations.
Seconds to anything by Jim Harrison and Steinbeck.
Brown Dog cracks me up!
Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
If you liked Housekeeping, I would recommend Gilead as well. IMO, Gilead is Robinson’s best work (the entire trilogy is beautiful)
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Prince of the Blood or the King’s Buccaneer by Raymond Feist