I agree. Gatsby gets my vote. And did, as soon as I saw the thread title.
Huckleberry Finn’s a nice piece of Americana, sure enough, but something stops me from considering it the most American novel. Probably the antebellum Southerness of it all, which I consider non-representative of America as a whole. As an outsider, that is. “America” to me is cities and cars.
I’ve heard The Godfather described as the quintessential story of the immigrant experience: poor nobody flees the old country, makes good in America. That he makes good in organized crime is secondary. 
It’s difficult since a lot depends on what century of America you are talking about. I don’t know about the 21st century, but for the 20th century, I would vote for either To Kill a Mockingbird or Catch 22. For the 19th century, certainly Huckleberry Finn is a strong candidate.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
Catch-22
From the sublime to the ridiculous, with a stop along the way for mythologizing. The Arc of America?
Catch-22 is about an American who fulfills his patriotic duty twice over (by which I of course mean blowing up stuff real good in a foreign land) before ultimately deciding he’s up against a crazy system that’s rigged against him, and so it’d be crazy not to win like another American who realized it too – even while seeing another American decide to work within the system, and reinvent himself as a rich businessman, because, hey, the whole point of America is that it’s a place where all sorts of stories play out.
Some pretty good nominations.
For another change of pace, how about Zane grey and riders of the purple sage?
While other nominees tie into a specific historical epoch and location, the cowbay genre is quintessentially American and spans a time and area larger than most.
Even recognized as part of the national character today by millions of foreigners, inspiring personal character traits, clothes and even us diplomacy to the current day.
/s
I’ve heard it said that the kind of movie cowboys we see in Westerns are from a very limited time, after the Civil War (or at best after the Mexican-American one) to around 1890. That’s not so long.
An American Tragedy. Love, murder, and the electric chair. Plus, it has “American” in the title 
I’d go with Gatsby. The world looks at America as the place to go reinvent yourself as a flashy rich guy.
By way of contrast, the most Canadian novel is Anne of Green Gables.
Another vote for Huck Finn.
My main problem with Gatsby is that I pretty much disliked every character. Gatsby himself would have been an interesting character but his absolute obsession with one of the most purely vapid and useless wastes of literary oxygen ever put to print along with the fact that everyone else was pretty annoying made for a largely forgettable book. Fitzgerald could have titled it “Rich People Behaving Badly.” Huck Finn at least had a cross section of socioeconomics, even if it was geographically concentrated.
If you want to go old money East Coast, Twain’s “A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” is probably a better one anyway.
I think Moby-Dick (yes, it is actually hyphenated, although the hyphen is usually dropped these days) is a fine choice. It exemplifies the adventurous spirit of Americans and presents the microcosm of America on board the Pequod. But *Huckleberry Finn * would be a good choice too. And The Great Gatsby for more modern times.
Am I the only person here who’s even read Look Homeward, Angel?!? :dubious: 
