Help Us Crown Literature’s Ultimate Cad

14 hours ago 2

Every March, we gather for the time-honored literary tradition of trying to make a pun out of March Madness. Last year, you helped us decide the best campus novel ever written in our March Gradness bracket. The year before, March Sadness. Now we’re back again with March Cadness, a quest to find literature’s best (or worst?) cad!

Okay, we’ll admit it: We’re running out of puns. For this one, we had to reach back—way back—to the 19th century, when cad was a popular term to describe a dishonorable man who uses charm and seduction in pursuit of selfish ends, often leaving wrecked relationships in his wake. While cad may feel dated or unfamiliar, the archetype is not. The cad has never really gone away; he’s just changed names. From Don Juan to player to fuckboy, literature has always been populated by these disreputable men.

What remains true about the cad is that he is narratively irresistible. He generates plot, accelerating conflict, stoking desire, and inviting humiliation. He is, for better or worse, the engine of many books. And yet, what often makes this archetype so compelling is not his bad behavior, but his slow unraveling—the moment the mask slips and he is exposed for what he is: a cad!

For this competition, we’ve gathered the worst cads across literary history: the smooth talkers, the liars, the self-mythologizers. You can start making your picks on Monday, 3/30 at 12 PM Eastern on our Instagram stories. Check out the bracket below and download it here to fill out your picks, then follow along to see if your (least?) favorite cad wins!

Below is a sneak peek of the Round One match-ups, featuring 32 of the best cad novels out there, ranging from classics to contemporary takes on the cad.