Novel young American (3,6)
I believe the answer is:
tom sawyer
'novel young american' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'young american' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'young' could be 'y' and 'y' is located in the answer.
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tom sawyer that I've seen before include "Mark Twain's hero" , "American hero" , "Boy whose Adventures were recorded by Mark Twain" , "Boy hero of Mark Twain novel" , "Hero of book" .)