My choice would be Huckleberry Finn.

Agree, disagree, other nominees?

Again it sort of depends on criteria, but it's a great nomination. Twain greatly influenced many of the greats who succeeded him, including the Hemingway/Fitzgerald/Faulkner trio. I don't know if it would count as "Greatest," but the best novel I've ever read is John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. I'd nominate The Sun Also Rises, though I expect I'd be in the minority even if we were limited to Hemingway novels! The Old Man and The Sea would be my number two for Hemingway. Gatsby would be another pick. Maybe Don DeLillo's White Noise.

Finally, let me say that Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist is a hell of a book!

I do like that. Catcher in the Rye.

Also Grapes of Wrath is a contender as is Of Mice and Men. Does that qualify? Novella vs novel?

I think also it depends on age of the reader. Certainly A Day No Pigs Would Die is a wonderful novel also and classic Americana for its time and place.

I agree that all of Danny's and Lobos selections are great novels. (And thanks to Lobo for recommending A Prayer for Owen Meany to me about a year or so ago.

But I'd still rank Huckleberry Finn at number one because of the great influence it had on every generation of American writers that followed.

(And the fact that it frequently shows up in "book banning" lists promulgated by illiterates is another point in its favor.)

Would you count Lolita as an American novel? It's the best novel I've ever read.

Yes- Nabokov is considered a Russian-American writer and he wrote Lolita- his first novel in English - when he lived in America.

I agree that it is a fantastic novel and is one of my favorites as well.

Slaughterhouse Five

That's a great novel, Lobo. But do you consider it to be the "greatest American novel?"

Catch-22 with The Grapes of Wrath close behind would be my nominations.
Certainly Hemingway and Twain are contenders. Salinger, though a personal fave, I would not consider a "great."

No, but it should be among the nominees.

Agreed. Most of the books mentioned thus far certainly belong among the nominees.

One of my favorites along with Huck Finn would be "To Kill A Mockingbird" maybe not the greatest American novel though

Rick-

I agree. That is certainly a valid nominee for the greatest American novel. Just read it again when I was in Los Angeles this past June.

An interesting thing to me, though, is that while the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird is also on my personal list of "best films," I've never seen a movie adaptation of Huckleberry Finn that did any justice whatsoever to the novel.

To Kill a Mockingbird is another of the best, as is The Great Gatsby. Both reflect so much about American society at the times they were written (and today,too). As does The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Hemingway felt all novels after Huck Finn were influenced by it.

Good call on Catch-22, landmark. A brilliant work.

My favorite parenthetical phrase of all time is from Lolita:
"My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning)..."

Vonnegut I put with Philip Roth and some of Norman Mailer as "near great."
Anyone a Pynchon fan? I could never get through Gravity's Rainbow.
I was on a John Barth kick for a while. Very brilliant writer, every book completely different, not that well known anymore.

I think "near greats" can achieve greatness occasionally, that is, come up with a transcendent book/album/song/athletic performance.

I would nominate The Fountainhead and/or Animal Farm.
Totally different genres yet both great reads.