The inspiration for each installment of our Literary Tourism series comes from many places. Today’s Michigan-set list was inspired by What Should I Read Next Ep 390: Audiobooks for the […] The post 15 recommended reads for those traveling...
The inspiration for each installment of our Literary Tourism series comes from many places. Today’s Michigan-set list was inspired by What Should I Read Next Ep 390: Audiobooks for the longest flight of your life. Nadia Sussman was about to move from New Zealand to Ann Arbor and was looking for recommendations set in her new home. We received STACKS of great suggestions from so many enthusiastic Midwestern readers!
We’ve gathered up the books discussed in that episode, some of the recommendations you all so enthusiastically left in the comments of the show notes, and sprinkled in a few more of our favorites. There are PLENTY great books set in Michigan—there’s no way to include them all here and that isn’t our goal. That’s where you come in: we’d love to hear your recommendations for books with Michigan settings in the comments section!
Whether these Michigan-set reads bring back memories of previous visits to the state or you hope to travel there someday, I hope this list will make you excited about your next trip or provide an accessible and affordable means of escape via armchair travel.
Literary Tourism: Michigan
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In her haunting, wistful novel, Mandel imagines the end of the world as we know it, and it's nothing like you're expecting. Hours after a famous actor suddenly dies onstage during a performance of King Lear, a global pandemic known as the Georgian Flu sweeps the world. In her signature style, Mandel weaves together the stories of five characters, featuring a traveling Shakespeare troupe whose members earnestly endeavor to maintain art and hope as they visit various settlements around Lake Michigan. ("Because survival is insufficient.") Readers' appetites for pandemic-related stories may vary, but rest assured this book is anything but depressing; I found it striking, sympathetic, and hopeful. More info ?
Shortly after moving to Boyne City, MI for her job as an elementary school teacher, Jane meets Duncan and quickly falls for him. A relationship with Duncan means a relationship with the small town, including his ex-wife, her second husband, and every woman Duncan slept with in the past. It can be a lot—and a lot of opinions—to take. Jane wishes she didn’t have to share him quite so much. Over the course of twenty years, we see the ups and downs of marriage, work, and life, as well as the toll of a terrible car crash, as Jane considers what it means to be part of a family and who else it might include. More info ?
The epic tale of three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family from leaving their tiny Greek village to Prohibition-era Detroit to today’s suburban Grosse Pointe. Our narrator Cal is intersex: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." Cal takes us through uncovering the skeleton in the family’s closet and what this means for his genetic history. Content warnings apply. More info ?
In 1913, Calumet had the largest copper mines in the US, thanks to its ideal shipping location on the shores of Lake Superior. But not everyone benefited from this boom. Annie Clements has witnessed just how much the workers sacrifice for little pay, while the women fear mines collapsing and losing their husbands and fathers forever. She decides to lead a strike, calling for a small pay raise and safer working conditions. Through selfish managers and strike breakers and even a blizzard, through the threat of jail and her husband’s lack of support, Annie proves to the town and herself what’s worth fighting for and what lasting change is possible when workers band together. An insightful, moving portrait of the early 20th century labor movement. More info ?
Most well-known for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith has written other books you'll be happy to discover. After Annie meets Carl and falls in love, she decides to move to the Midwestern university where he’s studying law so they can get married. (The setting is widely assumed to be Ann Arbor.) The story follows them over the course of their first year together as they deal with poverty and their lack of community in this new town. It’s ultimately an uplifting account of young love and the ways spouses can care for and support each other. More info ?
This fictionalized account of a Michigan murder trial written by a former District Attorney made an immediate splash when it was published in 1958 and was even turned into a movie. The courtroom drama covers the trial of an Army lieutenant who shot the bartender who raped his wife. Vigilante justice might not be uncommon in the Upper Peninsula but it still flies in the face of the law. Thus DA Paul Biegler takes the case and figures out whether there’s a way around the law to get his client off the hook. Dated in places but still a riveting read. More info ?
Pagán’s books go down like light-hearted, escapist reads, but they address issues that matter to us all. Annie’s life has turned upside down. She’s a twenty-something chemist who was forced out of the job she loved, at the same time that her fiancé decides to go find himself—alone—in Paris and she’s experiencing a rift with her best friend. She becomes a cleaning lady for some of her neighbors in East Haven, making unexpected connections. Now her new neighbor needs her help and a detective has her sneaking around minding other people's business. I loved the midwestern vibes and watching Annie come into her own. Pagán’s books get into heavy territory, but her books are FUN and this was no exception. More info ?
Emily Henry's breakout novel is set on the shores of Lake Michigan. January is a 29-year-old romance writer who no longer believes in happily-ever-after. Demoralized and broke, she moves into the North Bear Shores lake house she inherited when her father died, hoping to lick her wounds and finish her current manuscript. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, she discovers her neighbor is the beloved literary fiction writer Augustus Everett, her college rival (and crush), whom she was hoping to never see again. It turns out Gus has troubles of his own, and so the two make a bet to get their writing back on track: January will try her hand at the “bleak literary fiction” that Gus writes, and Gus will write a romance novel. A warm and delightfully meta take on love, writing, and second chances. More info ?
This powerfully layered YA debut adroitly balances a thrilling crime plot, a fake relationship, and a thoughtful exploration of identity and belonging. 18-year-old hockey star Daunis dreams of leaving her small community of Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and making a fresh start in college. But after she witnesses a terrible crime, Daunis is persuaded to go undercover to nail the dealers whose deadly new drugs are ravaging her Anishinaabe community. While seeking justice for her best friend, Daunis also grapples with burgeoning feelings for her handsome hockey player crush and navigates often-tense relationships within her own family. This one shines for its pulse-pounding first-person narrative drive and prolific use of Ojibwe phrases and practices. (While sensitively handled, triggers abound, including murder, suicide, sexual assault, and racism.) More info ?
In this tender coming of age story, 10-year-old Kenyatta’s family is in upheaval. After her father dies from an overdose and the family loses their Detroit home, her mother sends her and her older sister to live with their grandfather in Lansing, for reasons that, though unclear, are plenty scary to young KB. While Nia seems to slip easily into Lansing life, KB struggles to find her place, unsettled by the discovery her world and her family are more complex and frightening than she once believed them to be. A moving exploration of family, identity, and race that piercingly evokes the pains and pleasures of childhood summer days. Harris beautifully voiced her young book-loving protagonist, brought to life through Zenzi Williams’s stellar narration in the audiobook. The many references to Anne of Green Gables were apt and touching. Content warnings apply. More info ?
This is the novel I didn't know I was longing to read, with its tender familial relationships, Michigan cherry orchard setting, and insider look at summer stock theater. When Lara is nearing sixty and the pandemic is just beginning, her three adult daughters return home for the summer. The girls have long romanticized their mother’s once-upon-a-time romance with a megastar actor, and now, all together again, the girls direct Lara to tell them the whole story from the beginning. She unspools her story slowly, over three long weeks harvesting cherries on the family property. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending, but this story? Absolutely gorgeous. I re-read it via the audiobook, which is narrated by Meryl Streep. Yes, THAT Meryl Streep. More info ?
Morrison’s masterpiece is set in an unnamed city in Michigan that is widely believed to be Detroit. This coming-of-age family saga has an unforgettable opening scene: the day before Milkman Dead was born, a neighbor leaps off the hospital roof in the mistaken belief that he will fly across Lake Superior. Milkman’s father is a wealthy Black man, the only Black person to own a car in their town and a practitioner of respectability politics. The women in the family, by contrast, are kind and nourishing. Despite their care, Milkman winds up entitled and rootless, culpable to swindlers and the like, as he leaves the rustbelt city in search of his family’s origins. Content warnings apply. More info ?
Aimz Rushton brought this true crime memoir to my attention in WSIRN Episode 348: Don’t read widely (right now). Maggie Nelson’s twenty-three- year-old aunt Jane Mixer went missing from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1969. She was found brutally murdered the next day. Her case remained unsolved but she was assumed to be one of the infamous Michigan Murders, attributed to alleged serial killer John Collins. Then a 2004 DNA match uncovered a new suspect for Jane’s murder, just as Nelson was about to publish a poetry book exploring her aunt’s life and death. Here the author details what happened when the murder case was reopened, covering the trial and focusing on the impact on the victims’ families. She also interrogates her own childhood experience of her aunt’s death, from her mom’s concerns over her and her sister’s safety to her own fears about whether a killer was still out there. She also reflects on the cultural fascination with dead white women and the consequences for survivors. More info ?
The setting: Michigan's Upper Peninsula, 2003. A two-and-a-half-year-old girl falls into a well, but according to Hill, the story began long before, if we believe “all back story is also story, that the underside of the iceberg explains what we see above.” During the course of the rescue effort, we embark on a wild ride to reveal the underside of the iceberg: the history of young Ursula and her family. We visit China in the 3rd century B.C., 8th century Finland, 17th century Canada and Sweden, and 19th century California, before landing back in Michigan for the rescue effort. A fascinating look at the invisible threads that bind us together, whether we know it or not. At first, this reads like a disjointed collection of short stories, but it comes together. Content warnings apply. More info ?
Hemingway released three different editions of this iconic short story collection, which also includes his famous Nick Adams stories. The stories alternate between northern Michigan and WWI and explore grief, separation, and alienation. My first introduction to these stories was in a summer literature program where a professor incited a fiery discussion by asserting a line from "Soldiers Home" was the best ever written in the English language: "Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate." I may have other ideas for superlatives, but I've never forgotten In Our Time. More info ?
Which books set in Michigan have you read and loved? Please tell us all about them in the comments section!
P.S. 23 recommended reads for those traveling to Chicago, 12 recommended reads for those traveling to Maine (or who want to), and more literary tourism.
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