Great American Novels List

Check out this list I read on Ken Jenning's blog. He was the guy that won for so many weeks on Jeopardy a couple of years ago.

February 9, 2009 The great American novels Around this time last year I assembled a deeply idiosyncratic list of the best bands from each of the fifty states. So why not do the same thing with novels, I thought to myself? What’s the best novel set in each of the fifty states? I found a couple sites on line running similar lists…I tried not to look too closely, but it looked like most of them were recommending books by an author from each state, or maybe a book that quintessentially sums up each state, or something. My list is simpler: what’s the Great Book set predominantly in each state? Doesn’t matter where the author’s from, doesn’t matter if the book could be set anywhere. Only geography matters. Alabama To Kill a Mockingbird, whose Maycomb is closely modeled after Harper Lee’s own Monroeville. Alaska The Call of the Wild. Granted, big chunks of this take place in the Yukon, but the longest setpiece is a trip up the Alaskan panhandle to Skaguay, and London even refers to some clearly Canadian (see what I did there?) locales in the book as “Alaska.” Arizona The Bean Trees. Barbara Kingsolver’s first book. Arkansas I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Okay, this is probably an autobiography, strictly speaking. But it’s novelistic. What do you want me to do, settle for whichever Grisham book is set in Arkansas? California Gotta be Steinbeck, right? The Grapes of Wrath is less “local color”-y than something like Tortilla Flat, but it’s the go-to Canonical Classic here, I guess. Colorado Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose actually has just as many scenes set in California and Idaho, but this is the only slot I had for it. Amazing book, if you love the West. Connecticut So, some book about how suburbia is a chilly, soul-smothering nightmare, I guess. Revolutionary Road, maybe? Actually, I’m partial to Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm. I guess Richard Yates should have put more Fantastic Four references in Revolutionary Road. Delaware I was so desperate here I was looking at books that have Delaware Indians as characters, for crying out loud, like Last of the Mohicans or Blood Meridian. What about Tom Coyne’s well-regarded golf novel A Gentleman’s Game? Hey, Amazon tells me they made a movie out of it with Gary Sinise. What do you want from me? There are no books set in Delaware. Florida Their Eyes Were Watching God. It’s very-very-very Floridian, it’s read seriously from junior high to Ph.D programs, it’s a real page-turner. Georgia Frankly I’d go The Color Purple here. But do I look like a PC sellout putting it back-to-back with Their Eyes Were Watching God? Plus there’s Maya Angelou up there and you know there’s going to be some Toni Morrison coming up later. Should I just appease the powerful cracker demographic and say Gone With the Wind? I hear that’s in Georgia. Hawaii I have nothing here but the ultra-haole From Here to Eternity. Well, I have Michener, but how is that any better? Idaho Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson! Great book. My only regret is that now I can’t use Gilead for Iowa. Illinois So many great Chicago writers to choose from here: Nelson Algren, James T. Farrell, Theodore Dreiser… I’ll go with Saul Bellow, nice safe choice, and say The Adventures of Augie March. But part of me really had a hard time turning down Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Indiana Okay, The Magnificent Ambersons is set in an unnamed “Midland city.” But it’s pretty clearly Booth Tarkington’s native Indianapolis. Iowa For a long time I was leaning Philip K. Dick’s Ubik here, since it devotes a lot of time-traveling pages to Des Moines. But that seemed a little perverse. A Thousand Acres by native Hawkeye Jane Smiley, then. Is this King Lear? No, it’s Iowa. Kansas If I’ve already let Maya Angelou in, I guess I can’t claim In Cold Blood isn’t a novel now. Kentucky Uncle Tom’s Cabin. At least the parts everyone remembers–the cabin, the chase across the ice-floes, etc. I think Simon Legree’s plantation was actually in… Louisiana Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, no question. Still read by undergrads everywhere, plus it’s full of local Creole color. Maine I know Richard Russo’s upstate New York books won’t even make the top ten when I get to the Empire State, but luckily Empire Falls, one of his best, at least pretends to be set in Maine instead. Maryland Pretty much all of Anne Tyler’s books are set in Baltimore. She’s like the John Waters of literature. (No, of course not. Wrong Baltimore director. She’s the talented, but slightly dull and middlebrow Barry Levinson of literature.) I’d go with The Accidental Tourist, but Breathing Lessons is pretty solid too. Massachusetts I can’t really not go Hawthorne here…The Scarlet Letter, I suppose, though The House of Seven Gables probably has more Massachusetts history. Michigan Song of Solomon is pretty clearly set in Detroit, right? Minnesota Native son Sinclair Lewis set Main Street in a thinly disguised version of his hometown. That’s good enough for me. Mississippi All of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha books are set in Mississippi, right? (I think I may have misplaced the ‘W’ in Yoknapawtapha. No, the first version looks better.) The Sound and the Fury then. Missouri Great, another easy one! Tom Sawyer. (Probably a lot of Huck Finn too, but I’m not 100% sure how that breaks down.) I’ll put the second half together tomorrow…that gives me 24 hours to find some book actually set in Rhode Island. Or the Dakotas. February 10, 2009 The great American novels: the sequel Continuing yesterday’s quixotic quest to find the best novel set in each of the fifty states. Onward toward the Dakotas! Montana A River Runs Through It is actually a pretty skimpy novella, which would leave us with A. B. Guthrie’s The Big Sky. Never read it, but the Kirk Douglas movie is awesome. And–holy crap–James Drury’s Amazon review calls it “poetry in book form”! Is this for real? The Virginian is an Amazon reviewer now? Nebraska If I pick a Willa Cather novel, and I don’t want to repeat authors, then I have to find something other than Death Comes for the Archbishop for New Mexico. Sigh. Well, I have to do it. Nothing’s more Nebraskan than My Antonia, right? Nevada The Ox-Bow Incident is apparently set in the Nevada Territory. Another Western I’ve never had to read because, luckily, there’s a pretty good movie. New Hampshire Yes, John Irving–but not the one you’re thinking. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a better book and doesn’t move to Vienna halfway through. New Jersey This has to be something by Newark’s one Philip Roth, right? Portnoy’s Complaint made me laugh more than American Pastoral, so it’s in. New Mexico Not Death Comes for the Archbishop, that’s for damn sure! Thank goodness for Bless Me, Ultima. New York I can’t think of any books set in New York. Well, there’s not going to be any Fitzgerald on this list if I don’t choose The Great Gatsby here, so let’s go with that. Suck it, Edith Wharton and Henry James. North Carolina I loved Look Homeward, Angel so much that I stole the copy I borrowed once from my sister and later bought her a new one. (Okay, the borrowed one got water-damaged too.) Hey, maybe I should have chosen Bonfire of the Vanities for New York so I could have had Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe back to back. North Dakota Thank you Louise Erdrich for apparently setting your first novel, Love Medicine, not in your native Minnesota but across the border in North Dakota! Ohio Okay, I screwed up by choosing Song of Solomon for Michigan, since now I can’t use Beloved for Toni Morrison’s home state. Let’s retroactively make Michigan one of Jeffrey Eugenides’ books, or maybe something Detroit-set by Elmore Leonard. Oklahoma I already used Barbara Kingsolver and Toni Morrison. Grapes of Wrath only has a few chapters in Oklahoma. I guess that leaves me with (Oprah’s Book Club selection!) Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts. If Oprah can get a president elected, surely she can help me choose the best Oklahoma novel. Oregon Sometimes a Great Notion, hands down. I love that book. Wait, is Cuckoo’s Nest set in Oregon too? Not sure. Pennsylvania Something by the late, great John Updike. Almost all his books are set in some analog of his Pennsylvania hometown. Rabbit, Run, I guess. Rhode Island Someone pointed out yesterday that if I burned Updike on Pennsylvania, I couldn’t use Witches of Eastwick for Rhode Island. Well, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve–an Oprah-approved ace! She’s Come Undone, by Wally Lamb. No, I haven’t read it. Mindy said it was all right, though. South Carolina All I have here is Prince of Tides. Am I missing something? “Lowensteeeein….” South Dakota Giants in the Earth, making Ole Rolvaag (I think) the only foreign-born writer on this list. Tennessee James Agee’s A Death in the Family is set in Knoxville. So are all of Cormac McCarthy’s early books, but I’ve never read any of them. Texas Speaking of Cormac McCarthy–do you go with him or McMurtry here? If I’m remembering right, Lonesome Dove is mostly set on the cattle trail north of Texas, and most of McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” is actually set in Mexico. Hmmm. I guess I could go with No Country for Old Men. Who am I missing here? Utah The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Because when I think of Utah, I immediately think of radical environmentalism. I guess I could have stuck with John Fitzgerald’s Great Brain books. Honest injun, I used to plumb love those. Vermont If kiddie lit counts, The Day No Pigs Would Die is something of a classic. My fourth-grade teacher skipped all the swears when she read it to us and I’m still bitter. Otherwise, it’s pretty slim pickings. It looks like Bernard Malamud set a book in Vermont: Dubin’s Lives. No idea. Virginia I thought there’d be some slam-dunk 19th-century classic here, but I can’t think of anything. Moll Flanders ends in Virginia, I guess. William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner must be set in Virginia. Let’s go with that. Washington No obvious pick for my home state, either. Most of Sherman Alexie’s best work is short stories. One of Tom Robbins’ books? I’ll stick with Snow Falling on Cedars, set out in the San Juans somewhere. That’s a good safe choice. West Virginia Wow, this was almost as hard as Delaware. I thought of Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks’ John Brown novel, but I doubt the bulk of the book is set around Harper’s Ferry. Which would leave me with…well, apparently there’s a Newbery winner set in West Virginia called Shiloh. I bet it’s about a dog, or something. If it won a Newbery Medal, the dog probably dies. Wisconsin This was looking pretty bleak as well. Is Little House in the Big Woods really the best-known book set there? Then Oprah came to the rescue! The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is apparently set on a Wisconsin farm. Wyoming Brokeback Mountain is actually a short story collection, so let’s go with The Virginian here. It’s what Amazon reviewer James Drury would have wanted. Hmmm, I wonder if Drury’s reviewed Brokeback yet. On my way to check it out…