What are your favorite novels by state...?

[First Speaker]

I was thinking about this the other day--I've done lots of unsystematic reading over the decades, and realized I had read at least one novel for every state in the union. So I decided to make a list of my own favorites. Some of my picks are obvious, some are eccentric, but all are what I actually have read and liked. List your own, and I welcome all comments and emendations:

Alabama: "To Kill a Mockingbird", Harper Lee

Alaska: "White Fang", Jack London

Arizona: "The Book of Skulls", Robert Silverberg

Arkansas: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", Maya Angelou

California: "The Big Sleep", Raymond Chandler

Colorado: "The Dog Stars", Peter Heller

Connecticut: "The Red Right Hand", Joel Townsley Rogers

Delaware: "Hawkes Harbor", S.E. Hinton

Florida: "To Have and Have Not", Ernest Hemingway

Georgia: "Chiefs", Stuart Woods

Hawaii: "From Here to Eternity", James Jones

Idaho: "Idaho Falls", William McKeown

Illinois: "True Detective", Max Allan Collins

Indiana: "The Friendly Persuasion", Jessamyn West

Iowa: "Shoeless Joe", W.P. Kinsella

Kansas: "Gilead", Marilynne Robinson

Kentucky: "Beloved", Toni Morrison

Louisiana: "A Confederacy of Dunces", J.P. O'Toole

Maine: "It", Stephen King

Maryland: "Kindred", Octavia Butler

Massachusetts: "Mystic River", Dennis Lehane

Michigan: "The Road to Wellville", T.C. Boyle

Minnesota: "Ordinary Grace", William Kent Krueger

Mississippi: "Light in August", William Faulkner

Missouri: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Mark Twain

Montana: "The Big Sky", A.B. Guthrie, Jr

Nebraska: "My Antonia", Willa Cather

New Hampshire: "A Separate Peace", John Knowles

New Jersey: "American Pastoral", Philip Roth

New Mexico: "The Crossing", Cormac McCarthy

New York: Tie--"The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Invisible Man", Ralph Ellison (I simply couldn't decide between them.)

North Carolina: "Look Homeward, Angel" Thomas Wolfe

North Dakota: "Downtown Owl", Chuck Klosterman

Ohio: "Praise the Human Season", Don Robertson

Oklahoma: "Cimarron", Edna Ferber

Oregon: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Ken Kesey

Pennsylvania: "The Burning Court", John Dickson Carr

Rhode Island: "The Witches of Eastwick", John Updike

South Carolina: "The Water is Wide", Pat Conroy

South Dakota: "Nearly Departed in Deadwood", Ann Charles

Tennessee: "A Death in the Family", James Agee

Texas: "The Gates of the Alamo". Stephen Harrigan

Utah: "A Study in Scarlet", Arthur Conan Doyle

Vermont: "The Secret History", Donna Tartt

Virginia: "The Confessions of Nat Turner", William Styron

Washington State: "Phoenix island", Charlotte Paul

West Virginia: "John Henry Days", Colson Whitehead

Wisconsin: "Way Station", Clifford D Simak

Wyoming: "Shane", Jack Schaefer

Washington, D.C.: "Lincoln", Gore Vidal

So that's my list. Would love to see other suggestions...

[Srkdqltr]

1. No Michigan? Whiskey River by Estelman might work.

[mokawanis]

2. Love the Amos Walker mysteries!

I wish he'd written more of them because I've read them all 2 or 3 times.

[First Speaker]

4. Oops...sheer carelessness...

...how about "The Road to Wellville", by T. C. Boyle...?

[virgogal]

3. "The Scarlett Letter" would be my choice for Massachusetts.

[Aristus]

5. The Twilight Saga will likely show up in a lot of lists under Washington State.

I think we deserved better...

[Ohiya]

6. "Ohio" by Stephen Markley