Appointment in Samarra (1934)

In the last 3.5 years, I've read 53 novels chronologically from 1900 to 1934. John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra likely marks the point where American novels get cynical, dark, and creepy — like the 1930s' equivalent of Bret Easton Ellis. The main character is completely loathsome, and there's no real moral center of the book.

That being said, it's a brutally honest portrait of small-town Pennsylvania of that time, and pretty easy to read. Not sure that there is truly any literary value but perhaps historical. John O'Hara's star has fallen from the literary pantheon, but it's interesting to know that this guy was huge at some point. 

Also if you want to write about anti-semitism in pre-WWII American novels, the characters spend their days bashing Jews the entire time.