# The most depressing novel you ever read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209 "2016-09-06T18:27:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/221 "2016-11-05T04:09:15Z")
**Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls** by Edward Leslie needs a mention. A collection of real-life survival stories focused on the Age of Discovery. While not all gloom and doom, more often than not things were terrible and miserable for those poor souls. It’s curbed in that the tales act as a gateway for history lessons about the hardships of sailing and exploring, as well as insights to the morality and thinking of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/222 "2016-11-05T11:15:31Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > _A Canticle for Leibowitz_, Walter M. Miller, Jr. > > Goddam, I love this book. It is the biggest middle finger to the entire human race that I can think of, but it is also beautiful, haunting, lyrical, maddening, saddening, and hysterically funny all at the same time. > [@Theodore\_Striker](#): > > Another great example, in praise and damnation of human nature. Looks as though I’m a thorough Philistine where _ACfL_ is concerned. I tried it decades ago, with various then associates of mine having raved about it. Got halfway through at most, and then “bailed”. For me, it was depressing and exasperating in equal proportions – my sentiments, “if I want to read about Catholic monasticism in the Dark Ages (which I’m by no means sure I do), I’ll read about that, plain and simple – not in some convoluted and pretentious apocalyptic-future guise.” I feel that there’s a lot in the general speculative-fiction field, which I just don’t “get”. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/223 "2016-11-05T13:51:18Z")
Jude the Obscure would take it for me. Although anything I’ve read by Hardy (Dinsdale likes Mayor of Casterbridge, I haven’t read it). Hate fucking Thomas Hardy. Hate Edith Wharton. Hate John Steinbeck (my high school was big on the entire Steinbeck oeuvre.) If one is a “fan” of depressing Holocaust literature, add Maus to your reading list. Cause nothing like cute little mice heading to the ovens. (I actually wouldn’t recommend most of the depressing classics - I would recommend Maus - its worth the pain). I’ll throw in something new to this list for people interested in entering Winter Solstice with a slit your wrists sort of book - Atwood’s Oryx and Crake makes The Handmaid’s Tale look like a stroll through the park. There is apparently a trilogy, just the first book was disturbing enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/224 "2016-11-05T17:37:09Z")
_The Memory Palace_, by Mira Bartok. I read it in one sitting; I don’t know if I was feeling especially tender-hearted, but her memoir of life with a mentally ill mother who eventually ends up homeless damn near killed me. And, of course, that great childhood Book of Dog Death, _Where the Red Fern Grows_. Gak! ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/225 "2016-11-05T17:39:34Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Jude the Obscure would take it for me. Then avoid _Tess of the d’Ubervilles_ at all costs! 😃 And to add one I thought about of after previous post: _Angela’s Ashes_. I think it’s a terrific book and I’ve probably read it five times, but it is a killer. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/226 "2016-11-05T17:54:20Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > Then avoid _Tess of the d’Ubervilles_ at all costs! 😃 I’ve read Tess twice. It was my most hated piece of literature, and then I decided to put myself through Jude because I heard it was worse. It is. I had a masochistic tendency in literature for a while. Plus I don’t remember books well, so if I’ve read something, and then have to be able to discuss it intellegently (say for a bookclub, a class, or to support my kids’ in their homework (hello Scarlet Letter and Great Gatsby), I have to read it again, which is how I read Tess twice. I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale at least four times - the first time for “fun.” Then for a class, then another class, then for bookclub. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/227 "2016-11-05T18:20:32Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I’ve read Tess twice. It was my most hated piece of literature, and then I decided to put myself through Jude because I heard it was worse. It is. > > I had a masochistic tendency in literature for a while. Plus I don’t remember books well, so if I’ve read something, and then have to be able to discuss it intellegently (say for a bookclub, a class, or to support my kids’ in their homework (hello Scarlet Letter and Great Gatsby), I have to read it again, which is how I read Tess twice. > > I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale at least four times - the first time for “fun.” Then for a class, then another class, then for bookclub. And the _Tess_ film with Natassja Kinski was pretty wrenching, especially knowing what a rapey f\*\*k Klaus Kinski was :mad: You put it really well: “masochistic tendency in literature.” I gravitate toward dystopic/uber depressing lit when I’m feeling down, which is the exact opposite of what I should be reading. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/228 "2016-11-05T18:24:02Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I read all the way to the end sure that somebody else would have mentioned _A Fine Balance_. Really, nobody? Because that book, my god, music to hang oneself to. Oh, Good Lord, how could I forget this one?! What an unrelenting festival of horror! Every time something even slightly good happened, it was “balanced” by a million horrible things (botched vasectomy, anyone?) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/229 "2016-11-05T19:18:57Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Jude the Obscure would take it for me. Although anything I’ve read by Hardy (Dinsdale likes Mayor of Casterbridge, I haven’t read it). Hate fucking Thomas Hardy. Hate Edith Wharton. Hate John Steinbeck (my high school was big on the entire Steinbeck oeuvre.) > . you know the funny thing? Steinbeck non fiction is totally different …try travels with charley … ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/230 "2016-11-06T01:23:17Z")
Lots of great entries so far; my submission is **Postcards** by Annie Proulx. Many of the books mentioned are worth the read due to the high quality of the literature which is often embellished by the heartbreak and bleakness of the subject matter. This novel is just an ongoing grind of the lives of a family and all they meet well-ruined. Loyal Blood indeed… ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/231 "2016-11-06T01:49:12Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > If you like McCarthy but want a protagonist who “kept making things worse and worse and worse not because he’s an evil man, but because he’s weak”, try “The Crossing”. It’s about a teenage boy who captures a wolf that has been attaching the family’s cattle and, rather than kill it, he decides to return it to the mountains of Mexico. Things do not go well:[spoiler]Eventually he gets the wolf killed. > > And his family (except his younger brother) killed. > > And his brother shot. > > And his brother’s remains (the brother having been shot _again_) desecrated. > > And his horse stabbed. > > And it’s all his fault.[/spoiler] Great suggestion and still well worth the read. You keep wondering how much more can this poor kid go through? Have you read the 3rd installation of the Border trilogy **Cities of the Plain** and did Billy’s experience in that novel balance your read of **The Crossing** at all? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/232 "2016-11-06T01:53:17Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > I can’t recommend the entire book, but _The Passage_ by _Justin Cronin_ (which is a novel, though not literature) has one of the most depressing first Chapters EVER. The entire book is bleak but that first chapter. Damn, I’ve got something in my eye. You have got to press on. This is an absolutely brilliant novel and it does get much better. The entire trilogy is a must-read. Let’s face it, post-apocalyptic fiction probably does need some degree of the bleak to be believable, no? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/233 "2016-11-06T02:05:07Z")
[_The House of Sand and Fog_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Sand_and_Fog_%28novel%29) by Andre Dubus is pretty damned depressing, and so is the film adaptation. Both are excellent, however, in the tradition of Shakespearean tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/234 "2016-11-07T04:17:10Z")
\*The Way of a Serpent \*by Torgny Lindgren. Man, that’s a story of total despair! But it’s a love to read! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/235 "2016-11-07T14:02:11Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Moby Dick isn’t depressing, though, and is in fact, really funny and entertaining! I would have hated it if I had had to read it in school, too (because I’m sure I would have tried to read it all the morning of the big test), but I read it for the first time last Christmas and absolutely loved it. Don’t keep away from it thinking it’s going to be a boring slog because it really isn’t! I had to check to make sure I hadn’t written that - I also read it this past Christmas and loved it. I would have HATED it at eighteen though. And I made sure it was the only book I had with me, on a trip - that helps me to sit down and work on a difficult novel. ---
**Author:** ![pmwgreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pmwgreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmwgreen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/236 "2016-11-07T14:51:58Z")
James K Morrow has a bunch of depressing books, but “This Is How the World Ends” is pretty much the most depressing thing I’ve ever read. It’s pretty much summed up in the title. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/237 "2016-11-07T15:07:53Z")
_ **The Girl on the Train** _ is the most recent depressing novel, I’ve read. I read it after it had been on all the best seller lists and they had already announced the movie was going to be made. There was not one redeeming character in the book. Even the protagonist wasn’t likable. I don’t even care to see the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/238 "2016-11-07T16:03:56Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I read all the way to the end sure that somebody else would have mentioned _A Fine Balance_. Really, nobody? Because that book, my god, music to hang oneself to. I have read that book and I spent the next several years erasing it from my memory. That’s the gold standard in Books to Slit Your Wrists By. My roommate keeps a copy on his shelf as a warning to others. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/239 "2016-11-07T16:24:33Z")
Anyone else ever read “The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon?” Disturbing and depressing on so many levels - but a beautifully written book. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/240 "2016-11-08T05:36:23Z")
It was mentioned upthread, but I have to mention it again. ‘Angela’s Ashes’ absolutely broke my heart. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=13)