Stacker compiled a list of books set in Idaho from Goodreads. Whether a writer sets a tale in the town where they went to college or spent part of their childhood-like Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" and its New England arts school setting and the almost-factual small town of Jo Ann Beard's "In Zanesville," respectively-or crafts a story that follows a social or political theme to a location they know little about but lay narrative claim to anyway, the world is rife with books known, loved, and respected that also capture the essence of place-books where setting itself is one of the strongest characters. Of course, there are certainly exceptions. The connection, from a writerly standpoint, is deeper than that-their work, nearly all of it, is set in "their" state. What makes authors like these inextricably associated with a particular state is not simply the matter of their having been born there or choosing to live there.
And what reader can think of Washington State without contending with the sparkle-vampire yarns of Stephanie Meyer? Illinois can lay claim to William Maxwell, Sandra Cisneros, and Adam Langer, among numerous others. Rural Pennsylvania is the playground of the much-heralded (and occasionally maligned) John Updike, and when many bibliophiles think of New Jersey, they also think of Richard Ford's series of novels featuring recurring Everyman character Frank Bascombe. The state of Maine is gifted with Pulitzer winner Richard Russo and horror icon Stephen King.
Mississippi has William Faulkner and his incomparable (fictional) Yoknapatawpha County and Missouri can lay claim to Mark Twain.
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