Ernest Gaines’ “Of Love and Dust”: The Most Important Twentieth-Century American Novel

Whenever I look at a list of the most important twentieth century American novels and novelists, the same names pop up again and again: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison. While each of these authors and their works are important, for various reasons, I do not see any of them as penning the quintessential twentieth century American novel. In fact, the novelist and novel I see as the most important twentieth century American novel never appears on any list, and the novel never appears on any list as the novelist’s best work. For me, Ernest Gaines’ 1967 novel Of Love and Dust is the most important twentieth century American novel and one of the most important novels ever.

I know that the phrase “most important” takes on a lot of connotations from thematic importance to stylistic importance to cultural importance. I know that Of Love and Dust does not necessarily hit the last mark because it has never reached the cultural status of works such as Morrison’s Beloved, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Yet, that should not exclude Gaines’ novel from discussion, especially when we remember that Fitzgerald’s novel didn’t receive critical or commercial success upon its release in 1925. It reached its cultural status in…