Quiet Masterpieces

Here is a question from The Blue Bookcase
designed to provoke discussion:

What literary title (fiction or non-fiction) do you love that has been under-appreciated?

We all know about the latest Dan Brown, and James Patterson isn't hurting for publicity.

What quiet masterpiece do you want more readers to know?



Most of my all-time favorite reads are literary reads.
Most of my all-time favorite reads are quiet masterpieces.


To choose my favorite quiet masterpiece,

I shall visit my list of favorite reads.

My All-Time Favorite Reads

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon Happenstance by Carol Shields Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner The Box Garden by Carol Shields Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman Civility by Stephen L. Carter The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck Possession by A.S. Byatt The Rotten Island by William Steig Half Magic by Edgar Eager Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg Working by Studs Terkel Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Watership Down by Richard Adams I, Claudius by Robert Graves Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murikami Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman The Last Shot by Darcy Frey Strong Measures edited by Philip Dacey and David Jauss Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett Material World by Peter Menzel      So, what shall I choose as my small favorite,
my favorite quiet masterpiece?  

How about Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell?   The story of Mrs. Bridge is the story of an ordinary person. Mrs. Bridge is just an average upper-middle class white housewife living in America in the middle of the last century.   But it is an extraordinary story. The book is written in little chapters, almost like long poems, little snapshots, about the everyday events in Mrs. Bridge's life.   No sensationalism. No Big Awful Traumatic Problems.   But a powerful story of a little life, a person who lived, in the words of Thoreau, a life of "quiet desperation."   A quote:    "They had started off together to explore something that promised to be wonderful, and, of course, there had been wonderful times. And yet, thought Mrs Bridge, why is that we haven’t — that nothing has — that whatever we — ?"     There's a Mr. Bridge, too, but I like Mrs. Bridge best.  
I'd love to hear your recommendations.