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Writings on the 50 States

The compilation of lists is always problematic and, some would say, a fool's errand. Having acknowledged that, however, it should also be noted that discrimination, in the non-pejorative sense, is a necessity in this age of information glut. And, well, lists are interesting both for what whey include as well as what they omit.

We at the Capitola Book Café thought, given the size of our country and the regional nature of publishing, it would be helpful to gather together what we consider to be exemplary pieces of writing from the fifty states. Simple enough, it would seem, but here I refer you back to the opening sentence... Our first idea was to identify the birth places of the writers themselves and have each represent his or her native state. Things went quickly awry. Did we really want Robert Frost to represent California, or Cormac McCarthy to represent Rhode Island? Clearly such a list might be fascinating and, who knows, generate new levels of civic pride. But would it serve any literary purpose for the general reader? Probably not. Our compromise is this: We have chosen one book (for space reasons primarily) to feature for each state of the Union. The titles are predominantly fiction, but non-fiction and poetry each make appearances. What these books have in common is a deep and abiding impression of place. Indeed, in many of these stories place almost assumes the mantle of character: think of Jack London, Twain, Faulkner, or more recently, Jim Harrison or Larry McMurtry. The writer need not have been born in the place she writes about; she needs simply to care enough to chronicle the truth, or the emotional truth, as she sees it. Which brings us to another comment about these books: the titles on this list are not PR pieces or chamber-of-commerce panegyrics. No Nevada tourist bureau will be quoting from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Joan Didion's California is not a place many would want to visit. Yet the books endure and this, in one sense, is a measure of integrity.

So, with the evocation of place as our criteria, we made our list. It is incomplete and probably infuriating to someone who has a better idea. C'est la vie. We tried, when confronted with many fine possibilities, to choose the lesser-known writer, the underdog. Hence, you won't find Stephen King standing in for Maine or Barbara Kingsolver for Arizona. These folks are doing all right without us. Overrepresented areas - the South, New England, California - were handled with the close-your-eyes-and-throw-a-dart method.

If you missed your vacation this year and need to at least contemplate a new locale, or if you want to revisit somewhere you know well, take this list and dive in. We hope that you enjoy the reading and, perhaps, take from it a new sense of the diversity and grandeur of America.


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last updated: January 20, 1996
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