I was all prepared to proudly write Stephen King as my fav Yank author, until I read your post. What's wrong with the King? He writes exclusively about the United States and Americans. I task you to name more than a handful of his characters who are not American. To my mind that makes him a real American author, because he writes about his country and people (often from Maine). Love him or not, his books are entertaining. I recently finished 'Under the dome', and immediately started into Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice', and guess what? 'Death in Venice' is boring as hell compared to a King's work. Just my opinion, but not all books need to have a prissy/yuppy "deep meaning". P.S. I'm not American.