The Great American Novel Tournament

Wimbledon has come to an end in a flood of tears and a whole lot of rain but don't you worry! There's a whole new tournament you're going to want to follow across the other side of the Atlantic. The race is on to find The Greatest Great American Novel or GAN. Matthew Spencer, aka Tenuous Fives, began the big debate on the Guardian website, calling for the help of other avid readers as he was 'about to embark upon an epic American adventure'.

He is looking for 32 novelists and the rules are that each author must be an American who has produced four 'great' novels over the last century (1912-2012). Gathering together his own thoughts and those of other people, he has put together a list of 16 seeded players and 16 unseeded, the latter of which are subject to change after considering the views of his readers.

At the moment the top 16 stand as:
1. Philip Roth
2. John Steinbeck
3. William Faulkner
4. Saul Bellow
5. Ernest Hemingway
6. F Scott Fitzgerald
7. Edith Wharton
8. Toni Morrison
9. John Updike
10. John Cheever
11. Richard Yates
12. Thomas Pynchon
13. Carson Mccullers
14. John Dos Passos
15. E L Doctorow
16. Norman Mailer


The final 16, which are subject to change, are:


17. Richard Russo
18. Jim Harrison
19. William Maxwell
20. Cormac Mccarthy
21. Jonathan Franzen
22. Truman Capote
23. Willa Cather
24. Stephen King
25. James Baldwin
26. Don DeLillo
27. James M Cain
28. Richard Ford
29. Michael Chabon
30. Anne Tyler
31. Kurt Vonnegut
32. William Kowalski

I'm thrilled to see so many greats up there and some of my favourites but the question is, which of these do you think belong there and is there anyone missing? The feminist in me is wondering why so few women? Toni Morrison and Edith Wharton are representing the female race in the top 16 but can we get Anne Tyler up there? 

You can follow this tournament through Matthew's blog (http://tenuousfives.blogspot.co.uk) or through his Guardian posts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/tenuousfives