>>24857823 (OP)
Oh, and to answer your question OP, which seems a little insincere:
>All of Steinbeck's works are of some quality, though stuff like The Pearl, To a God Unknown, and The Red Pony are a clear step down from the rest
>I recently read Train Dreams by Dennis Johnson that felt very much in line with these works, though with a folkloric subtlety that fogs the book
>If it's the straightforwardness that you like, obviously you should seek out Hemingway. I prefer The Sun Also Rises, but you might like the Short Sweet Life of Francis Macombre
>I found Fen by Daisy Johnson to be wholly disappointing. It is obsessed with describing sex and the body in unorthodox ways, which is so overused that it starts to feel bland and one dimensional, but then I reached The Scattering, which is almost a perfect short story placed almost at the end of this thing that ties some of the stories together. Two brothers routinely fight each other in a kind of anime show down as the little sister figures out her life. Weird, masculine, also folkloric.
>You'd probably like Carver and Lish, who strip things down to their most bare. I always liked Carver's The Viewfinder, a very, very short story about a man reclaiming his life after divorce.
Let me know if you want more in any direction, but I've got to start my day now.
