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This literary map of the US highlights 50 books – a vast majority of them novels – by 50 different authors that count among the best representations of the 50 American states, their specific landscapes, populations, cultures and history at one point in time. Not all of these books are masterpieces or part of the American canon, but I have selected works that, each in its own interesting way, convey a distinct sense of place. I have also tried to pick writers as diverse as possible, in terms of their origins, genders, literary styles and periods of history, in order to render the variety and richness of American fiction and the American experience itself. Please feel free to make comments, objections and suggestions.

Here is the complete list of the works selected, by state:

Alabama: To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960)

Alaska: Why Are We in Vietnam? (Norman Mailer, 1967)

Arizona: Underworld (Don DeLillo, 1997)

Arkansas: I know why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou, 1969)

California: On the Road (Jack Kerouac, 1957)

Colorado: The Shining (Stephen King, 1977)

Connecticut: Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates, 1961)

Delaware: The Book of Unknown Americans (Cristina Henriquez, 2014)

Florida: To Have and Have Not (Ernest Hemingway, 1937)

Georgia: Cane (Jean Toomer, 1923)

Hawaii: Hawaii (James A. Michener, 1959)

Idaho: Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson, 1980)

Illinois: The Jungle (Upton Sinclair, 1905)

Indiana: The Magnificent Ambersons (Booth Tarkington, 1918)

Iowa: A Thousand Acres (Jane Smiley, 1991)

Kansas: In Cold Blood (Truman Capote, 1966)

Kentucky: The Sport of Kings (C.E. Morgan, 2016)

Louisiana: All the King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren, 1946)

Maine: Empire Falls (Richard Russo, 2001)

Maryland: The Sot-Weed Factor (John Barth, 1960)

Massachusetts: Walden (Henry D. Thoreau, 1852)

Michigan: Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison, 1977)

Minnesota: Main Street (Sinclair Lewis, 1920)

Mississippi: The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, 1929)

Missouri: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)

Montana: A River Runs Through It (Norman Maclean, 1976)

Nebraska: My Antonia (Willa Cather, 1918)

Nevada: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson, 1972)

New Hampshire: Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov, 1955)

New Jersey: American Pastoral (Philip Roth, 1997)

New Mexico: The Crossing (Cormac McCarthy, 1994)

New York: The Great Gatsby (Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)

North Carolina: Look Homeward, Angel (Thomas Wolfe, 1929)

North Dakota: Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich, 1984)

Ohio: Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson, 1919)

Oklahoma: The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1939)

Oregon: Sometimes a Great Notion (Ken Kesey, 1964)

Pennsylvania: Mason & Dixon (Thomas Pynchon, 1997)

Rhode Island: The Witches of Eastwick (John Updike, 1984)

South Carolina: Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952)

South Dakota: Deadwood (Pete Dexter, 1986)

Tennessee: Wise Blood (Flannery O’Connor, 1952)

Texas: Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry, 1985)

Utah: When the Emperor was Divine (Julie Otsuka, 2002)

Vermont: The Secret History (Dona Tartt, 1992)

Virginia: The Confessions of Nat Turner (William Styron, 1967)

Washington: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Sherman Alexie, 1993)

West Virginia: John Henry Days (Colson Whitehead, 2001)

Wisconsin: The Art of Fielding (Chad Harbach, 2011)

Wyoming: Close Range (Annie Proulx, 1999)