Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read

[A2R.]

You sound like my wife. Our reading tastes are rather different. She usually doesn't trust my recommendations — unless I mention that it's depressing!

Off the top of my head, The Grapes of Wrath, The Jungle, and Bastard Out of Carolina, stand out in my mind as pretty depressing.

The Grapes of Wrath was pretty depressing.
I found The Great Gatsby to be rather depressing as well. Any life lived in vain is.

The beginning of Life of Pi is also a tear-jerker.

 

[Bolo]

Saddest Novel

Independent People by Laxness

 

[Bolo]

Saddest Short Story

A Dog's Tale by Twain

 

[Bolo]

Saddest Six Word Story

For Sale
Baby shoes
Never worn


Also by Twain, I believe

 

[Will]

One of my favourite novels, Waterland, by Graham Swift is pretty bleak and steeped in melancholy. There's also this tragic-nostalgic underpinning that just about knocks one for six too. It would be depressing, but it's such a world class book you're too amazed to really get so depressed.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin had a very sad ending.

Flowers for Algernon definitely the most depressing book that I read in my youth, but winner for the most depressing ever has to be Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Non-stop depressing.