An Elegy for the Great American Novel

The Independent has an elegy for the great American novel. Is there such a thing? Norman Mailer thought there was one and he tried tirelessly to write it until his recent death. John Updike's Rabbit books come to mind. Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow comes to mind. The works of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, William Faulkner and Kurt Vonnegut are high on the list of "great American novels" as are some of the books by J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye, of course) and Gore Vidal. Did anyone, can anyone, write the quintessential novel? And when the old literary lions start to pass on (i.e. Mailer), whom amongst the younger folks might be able to write it (Eggers, Chabon, et al)?

There's also been some scholarly interest of late in regards to that elusive thing, the Great American Novel.

Strangely, my novel wasn't mentioned in the story although I received a huge royalties check this past weekend (I can almost afford an egg log latte at Cafe Luna with it).