Let’s get the hook out of the way: this is one of the greatest long-form American novels. That it was written by a woman in the 1960s (initially published in 1965) and languished in publication purgatory for decades makes it all the more remarkable because it has since developed a cult status, given new life (in 2024) by the excellent Dalkey Archive Press. This is not to historicize, rather to give a brief contextual overview.

There’s so much here: so much language, so many ideas and concepts, so many tough questions, so many terrible and beautiful images. Like all great books, it cannot truly be talked about. There’s an essence that cannot be summarized or reviewed or put into smaller form. No, it must be read and internalized and brought to bear by the reader. I greatly admire these works because I think they are what literature needs to move forward. I also think it’s fair to criticize them, and, at times, The Tunnel feels overworked. Yet, it also regularly made me think about what it was trying to say to the point where I found myself discussing various arguments and ideas from it in the real world. Few works end up leaping into my conversations beyond surface discussions, so there’s a lot to recommend from that fact alone. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this book never quite gets out of first gear, making the entire thing a bit of a slog, rarely slipping into those transcendent moments where language and imagery carry you away so that you’re bowled over by an expected phrase. As though something which has lost the initial inertia or spark, it truly is a tunnel carved one shovelful at a time, reinforced the whole way – functional and structurally solid as hell, festooned to the point of nothingness, which, with its focus on disappointment and void, may be the entire point: “BEING. Holy word. Being cannot be recognized unless it succeeds in Seeming.” (75)