Downhill from there

[supergee]

First novels that were their author’s best

Thanx to Metafilter

Comments

[lydy]

Peter S. Beagle's _A Fine and Private Place_ was a masterpiece, he followed it up with _The Last Unicorn_ and nothing he has done since has been even half as good. Those two novels are amongst my all-time favorites. I like other books by him. I have an insane fondness for _Folk of the Air_ and _Tamsin_ is charming and eerie, but nothing matches his first two books.

[supergee]

For me the great two-hit wonders were a couple of mainstream guys: Joseph Heller (Catch-22, Something Happened) and Bernard Malamud (The Natural, The Assistant).

[carbonel]

And of course there are two famous one-hit wonder works because the authors never published anything else: To Kill a Mockingbird* and Gone with the Wind.

*Yes, I know. Doesn't count.