Tuesday, October 15, 2013
ALSO, IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT WIZARD OF OZ IS SET IN KANSAS? Business Insider has an infographic and accompanying article purporting to identify the most famous book set in each of the fifty states. Some are inarguable (Georgia gets Gone With The Wind, Alabama gets To Kill A Mockingbird), some are unfortunate, but probably accurate (Washington state gets Twilight), and some beg arguments (No Country For Old Men over Lonesome Dove for Texas?, Hotel New Hampshire rather than Owen Meany for New Hampshire?). I'm sure you have opinions.
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Not bad for Illinois at all; you could quibble that maybe Something Wicked This Way Comes, maybe Dandelion Wine,but The Jungle is probably the right choice. (Native Son has to be in the conversation too).
ReplyDeleteAs "most famous," these are mostly right, and it's pleasant that most of the books are probably pretty good. I'd lean towards "Beloved" for Ohio (and maybe give "Grapes of Wrath" to Oklahoma, though obviously not all of the book is set there), and I was a bit surprised Romana 2uimby, Age 8 didn't make it for Oregon.
ReplyDeleteThe 19th Wife just cannot be right for Utah. I know it did well, but most famous? I suppose Under the Banner of Heaven has too many different "settings" to be thought of as "taking place" in Utah, but maybe A Study in Scarlet?
ReplyDeleteHard to quibble with either my home state of New York or my birth state of Maine picks, even though both have a ton of great books taking place in them.
Also not sure about the Lost Symbol for DC. He's a very famous author of course but is that really the most famous book that takes place in DC? Especially if non-fiction and memoir are allowed, which they do seem to be.
I guess "The Firm" is more famous, but if you've never treated yourself to James Agee's lovely novel "A Death in the Family" (set in my hometown of Knoxville, TN) you really, really should. (Opening line: "“We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.”)
ReplyDeleteAnd if "Gone with the Wind" didn't exist, would "Deliverance" be Georgia's book? Although, I'm actually quite a fan of Tom Wolfe's sometimes-derided Atlanta book "A Man in Full."
All due respect to Junot Diaz, whose work I love, but I can't fathom how a Philip Roth book wasn't the pick for New Jersey. I'd also put "Independence Day" ahead of it, and also "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," among others.
ReplyDeleteProbably Deliverance, but other options are:
ReplyDeleteTobacco Road
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Color Purple
How about All the President's Men for DC?
ReplyDeleteRomana 2uimby is my favorite Time Lady memoir.
ReplyDeleteNorman Mailer?
ReplyDeleteIf Alan didn't say it already, I was surprised that Roth didn't pen the book that was put on the NJ map.
ReplyDeleteOh it should definitely be A Death in the Family, such a lovely book. But I assume this is about sales figures, not literary merit.
ReplyDeleteHow can Paradise be more famous than The Outsiders? The Outsiders is taught in middle schools all over the country. I would also think the Prince of Tides is more famous than The Secret Life of Bees, and would have suggested The Killer Angels for Pennsylvania, rather than The Lovely Bones.
ReplyDeleteOne other contemporary possibility for PA: The Wonder Boys. But if this is "most famous," it's Lovely Bones.
ReplyDeleteI think I would have picked a Laura Lippman novel for Maryland (Baltimore Blues or What the Dead Know), or in terms of sales, a Nora Roberts novel.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have to say that some of these read to me as "Most Popular Book Set in the State, As Selected By Newly Minted English Ph.D.s."
ReplyDeleteMy book club just read A Death in the Family - indeed, lovely.
ReplyDeleteDisappointed is many of the choices. Lonesome Dove is the most obvious miss to me. Pretty much undermines any credibility this may have had.
ReplyDeleteI would also argue that there are some James Patterson's that are more "famous". I might also mention Margaret Truman and George Pelecanos set a on of books in DC, but I can at least see that non-mystery buffs are more likely to have heard of stuff that got made into movies.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting because even if I were to go with Anne Tyler, I'm not sure that's the one I would have picked.
ReplyDeleteIn Cold Blood would be a better choice for Kansas.
ReplyDelete