[artpepper2]

I think it's meant to be a pun on "great white whale" - there's an idea of the "Great American Novel" which is the mythical book standing at the apex of American literature.

Moby-Dick is both a template for the Great American Novel and a convenient metaphor for authors who chase it. It's an old-fashioned way of thinking about the novel.

And this may be a contentious statement, but: It's probably not a coincidence that the traditional contenders for "Great American Novelist" have tended to be white males. Roth, Bellow, Updike, but also Hemingway, Pynchon, Gaddis, etc.

That doesn't detract from those authors' accomplishments. I think it says more about how the canon has evolved.