1939
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
Katherine Anne Porter · 1890–1980 · United States
Why it matters
A wartime love affair burns against the 1918 influenza pandemic, its feverish delirium exactly rendered. Porter's short novel is among the finest American treatments of illness, mortality, and survival's guilt.
At a glance
war novelpsychological novel
Difficulty 6/10medium pace128 pagesFeverish, fragmented delirium-prose mirrors the illness it depicts.
Deep dive
A wartime romance unfolds against an epidemic the newspapers won't fully report, and Porter, drawing on an illness that nearly killed her, renders the fever itself in prose as disordered as the sickness — survival's strange, unbearable aftermath.
Where to go next
Katherine Anne Porter · 1962Ship of FoolsLvl 6Slow burn
Katherine Anne Porter · 1965The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne PorterLvl 6Medium pace
Nathanael West · 1933Miss LonelyheartsLvl 6Fast paced
Mavis Gallant · 2002Paris StoriesLvl 5Medium pace
Sherwood Anderson · 1919Winesburg, OhioLvl 3Medium pace
J. D. Salinger · 1951The Catcher in the RyeLvl 3Fast paced