Recommendations
Books Like It Can't Happen Here
Eight novels of American fascism, political crisis, and democratic fragility
Lewis's cautionary tale of American dictatorship recommends novels that examine the vulnerability of democratic institutions, the rise of authoritarian movements in Western societies, and the great tradition of American political fiction that confronts the country's self-image.
- 1Buy
1984
by George Orwell
Winston Smith in Oceania under Big Brother — the canonical literary portrait of totalitarianism, written thirteen years after It Can't Happen Here; where Lewis imagines fascism arriving through democratic elections (Windrip wins the presidency), Orwell imagines a totalitarianism that has existed so long its origins are obscure; both novels are warnings, but Lewis's is more specifically American and Orwell's more universal
- 2Buy
The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth
In an alternate history, Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election and the United States tilts toward fascism — the twenty-first century's most direct response to It Can't Happen Here, using the same counterfactual premise (what if a fascist sympathizer won the American presidency?) with the same intent: to show that American democratic institutions are not immune to what happened in Europe
- 3Buy
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
The Republic of Gilead replaces the United States after a violent coup — Atwood's feminist dystopia is the most widely read contemporary descendant of It Can't Happen Here; where Lewis imagines fascism through the figure of a demagogic male politician, Atwood imagines theocratic patriarchy through the experience of women whose rights are eliminated; both novels are set in an America that has become something unrecognizable
- 4Buy
The Manchurian Candidate
by Richard Condon
A Korean War veteran brainwashed by Communists to be a sleeper assassin — Condon's Cold War satire-thriller shares It Can't Happen Here's concern about the vulnerability of American democracy to authoritarian subversion; where Lewis fears that fascism will come through elections, Condon fears it will come through foreign psychological manipulation; both novels are dark comedies about political systems that are less stable than they appear
- 5Buy
American War
by Omar El Akkad
The United States has been split by a second Civil War — El Akkad's novel imagines the American future through the experience of refugees from the American South; the most direct contemporary descendant of Lewis's project of imagining political catastrophe in recognizable American settings with recognizable American characters; where Lewis's Windrip is based on 1930s demagogues, El Akkad's war is based on contemporary American political fractures
- 6Buy
Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis
Carol Kennicott arrives in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota and cannot reconcile herself to its narrowness — Lewis's breakthrough novel is essential context for It Can't Happen Here; Main Street established the Midwestern small town as Lewis's primary subject, and the same town (Fort Beulah, Vermont in It Can't Happen Here; Gopher Prairie in Main Street) becomes the site of both his sharpest observations of American conformity and his examination of its political consequences
- 7Buy
Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis
George Babbitt, a real estate broker in Zenith, Winnemac — Lewis's portrait of American business conformity and boosterism is the satirical foundation on which It Can't Happen Here is built; Babbitt's Boosters Club and its cheerful emptiness is what makes Windrip's fascism possible; the citizens of Fort Beulah who support the Corpo regime are Babbitts who have been given an ideology that validates their conformity
- 8Buy
When the World Was Steady
by Claire Messud
Two sisters — an anthropologist in Bali, a woman managing a failing Italian restaurant in London — examine their lives and their mother's influence; Messud's literary fiction is a deliberate contrast here: recommended for readers who have just read It Can't Happen Here and need a novel about private life, a reminder of what Lewis's political fiction is defending; the domestic is not the opposite of the political but the thing the political makes possible or destroys
More It Can't Happen Here Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.