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.