Whenever I look 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 rmember that Fitzgerald’s novel didn’t receive critical or commercial success upon its release in 1925. It reached its cultural status in the 1950s when it became a text read by high school students across the nation.

Of Love and Dust debuted in 1967 during a pivotal period in the American twentieth century. That year, the Supreme Court outlawed state laws that banned interracial intimacy in the Loving v. Virginia decision. We were four years removed from 1963, yet still in the midst of the what we normally term the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, and the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. We were one year away from the murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, among others, and two years removed from the assassination of Malcolm X. Gaines novel, while set in 1940s rural Louisiana speaks to this moment and to the history of the United States in a way that Faulkner, Lee, Willa Cather, and others don’t.

The novel focuses on Marcus, a Black man who gets bailed out of jail, through the bond lease system, by a wealthy white landowner, Marshall Hebert. Marcus has to work on Hebert’s plantation to pay off his debt, another form of slavery as we know from the 13th amendment which made slavery illegal “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This aspect of the novel deals with the carceral state and the history of mass incarceration in a nation that houses 20% of the overall number of incarcerated individuals in the world.

Along with incarceration, the novel deals with interracial intimacy and the history of racism, violence, and sexual assault against Black women and white women. There are two intersecting interracial relationships in the novel. One exists between the Cajun overseer Sidney Bonbon and Pauline, a Black woman who works on Hebert’s plantation. This relationship begins in violence, with Bonbon raping Pauline, but it moves into an intimate relationship where they love one another. The couple has two children, but due to the racial strictures, Bonbon doesn’t openly recognize them even though the whole community knows they are his.

The other intimate relationship is between Marcus and Bonbon’s wife Louise. This relationship, again, starts of violently. Marcus doesn’t rape Louise because she is, ostensibly, the asexual white woman on the pedestal. She knows about Pauline and Bonbon, and she wants to feel needed, to feel loved, so she seeks to seduce one of the Black workers. Marcus starts a relationship with Louise to ket back at Bonbon. They begin their relationship by playing into the stereotypes of the hypersexual Black man and the asexual white woman, but like Pauline and Bonbon’s relationship, theirs turns into an intimate one and they plan to run away together, with Louise and Bonbon’s daughter Tite, to live a life free of racial strictures.

While these two threads weave their way throughout the novel, the core rests on Marshall Hebert, the white landowner that only makes a few appearances over the course of the novel. Hebert manipulates everything, playing individuals against one another to benefit his own financial standing and power. (I’ve written some about this before.) Before the action in the book, he had Bonbon kill someone for him, and now Bonbon holds that fact over his head. Hebert wants to rid himself of Bonbon, so he bails Marcus out of jail and even says he’ll help Marcus and Louise escape North. However, Hebert tells Bonbon, and Bonbon confronts Marcus at the end of the novel.

Hebert’s control of the narrative action highlights the ways that racism works, not as individual acts of violence but as systemic structures that oppress individuals. Angela Davis, in her 1974 autobiography, writes, “Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in — by paying Black workers less for their work. We talked about the way racism confuses white workers, who often forget that they are being exploited by a boss and instead vent their frustrations on people of color.” Thematically, racism and power lie at the core of the novel, detailing the systemic nature of oppression. We see this clearly through Bonbon who allows the structures to keep him from openly expressing his love for Pauline and their children.

Stylistically, Gaines drew direct inspiration from Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and other twentieth century American novelists that we repeatedly see on the “most important” lists. In fact, Jim Kelly, the narrator in Of Love and Dust, is modeled after Nick Carraway, the narrator from Fitzgerald’s novel. It is not a one-to-one correlation, especially since The Great Gatsby takes place in 1920s New York and Of Love and Dust takes place in 1940s rural Louisiana: however, one sees the correlation in the ways that each narrator relates the story of others, Jay Gatz and Marcus respectively.

Of Love and Dust showcases Gaines’ writing prowess, especially through Jim’s narration. Even though the novel is a first person narrative, there are moments in the novel where Jim slips seamlessly into other voices and perspectives, relaying scenes that others witnessed, in their voices. We see this when Aunt Margaret relates to Jim the first time Marcus and Louise have sex. We hear them in the room, as Aunt Margaret stands outside. We see it when Sun Brown reports Marcus’ murder. We see it elsewhere too. These shifts occur so seamlessly we barely register them as we read.

I don’t have time to delve into every reason why I see Gaines’ Of Love and Dust as the quintessential American novel. There is the confluence of Black Power and Nonviolence in the characters of Marcus, Jim, Aunt Margaret and others. There is the shifts in tone from realism to comedy to tragedy over the course of the novel. There is the novel in relation to modernism. There is just so much that makes this novel important. For these reasons, and many more, I argue that we need to consider Of Love and Dust as one of the most important twentieth century American novels.

I spoke about this at the 2024 Revivival Lost Southern Voices (video below).

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.