It has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels."

"It's like trying to write the great American novel," he says.

"You'll coach me through writing the great American novel, won't you?"

It is considered by some critics to be "one of the great American novels".

But for a long time it was surely the most significant American novel.

He was in the process of researching a book on the American novel at the time.

I am now nearly 60 and have only one more paragraph to write on the great American novel.

Ultimately his book is an American novel, both in birth and scope.

"Write the great American novel" is going to be on the list for a while.

The genre is no replacement for the lost American novel, at least not yet.