John Updike was a prolific, successful, and critically acclaimed American author whose work was centered in the middle of the twentieth century. Updike's style, which was fairly consistent over his more than twenty novels and dozens of short stories, featured an intense realism in storytelling about middle class Americans that often had frank descriptions of sexual activity and discussions of Protestant beliefs.

Virtually the entire canon of William Faulkner is set in the fictional Yoknapatawtha County. Even the stories set elsewhere refer back to or feature characters from Faulkner's other stories set there. William Faulkner’s literary achievements earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a landmark novella that tells the story of Gregor Samsa, who finds himself transformed one morning into a massive bug. The Metamorphosis is Kafka's most famous story, and has many of the hallmarks of Kafka's style, including surreal situations, ironic plots, and dark humor.

Raymond Chandler wrote his first book when he was in his 40s during the Great Depression. Nonetheless, he instantly became one of America's bestselling authors, writing several books in a "pulp" vein about the detective Phillip Marlowe. In doing so, Chandler pioneered literary detective fiction, with its hard-boiled investigator, sparse language, complex plots, and dark mood. Chandler's typical Los Angeles settings also saw many of his books, like The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, made into films.

Sinclair Lewis published his novel Elmer Gantry in March 1927, and immediately had both a bestseller and controversy on his hands. Lewis' story of a corrupt and immoral evangelist, which was based on the careers of actual evangelists, drew widespread derision from religious groups. Nonetheless, Elmer Gantry was the bestselling American novel of 1927.

Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man tells the story of an unnamed narrator who is not physically "invisible," but instead is someone who people refuse to see. Ellison's book was an allegory for the status of African Americans in American society at the time. The book also dealt with Marxist politics, cultural norms, and issues of black nationalism through its narrator becoming invisible.

Robert Penn Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with All the King's Men, a roman à clef about the political career of assassinated Louisiana politician Huey P. Long. The novel was made into a successful film, and gained Warren a notable amount of literary success. Warren is the only person to win a Pulitzer for Fiction and Poetry, having won the latter prize in both 1958 and 1979.

Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel Lolita caused almost instant controversy, as its subject matter was about a college professor in his late thirties who was obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl. The book's narrative format, featuring an unreliable narrator, proved engrossing to readers and critics. As well, Nabokov's use of language and plumbing of psychological problems made the book considered one of the best of the century.

William Faulkner is well known both for exploring the culture and habits of the inhabitants of his native Mississippi and using inventive and creative forms of narrative and literary structure. Both of these elements are exhibited in his book As I Lay Dying. Covering the attempt of the dysfunctional Bundren family to bury their mother Addie in her family cemetery, the chapters take the point of view of different members of the family.

Ray Bradbury was well known as a general science fiction author in the early 1950s who covered topics like space flight and aliens. His 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 was a much more obviously allegorical tale about the social and political situation in 1950s America. The book's discussion of banning and burning books was an intentional effort by Bradbury to address the Red Scare, censorship, and political banishment.