On the City Cast Madison podcast today, Joanne Berg, the owner of one of my favorite bookstores, Mystery to Me, talks about this weekend’s Monroe Street Festival and her store’s mission to support Madison authors.
Of course, one popular piece of advice for writers is to “write what you know.” And a lot of Madison authors have taken inspiration from the city around them when writing their novels. So here are some of my favorite fiction reads set in Madison — check them out at your local library or bookstore.
“Real Life” by Brandon Taylor
Taylor doesn’t name the Midwestern college town where he set his 2020 debut. But it’s pretty clear that the former UW-Madison grad student was inspired by his alma mater — the lakeside terrace, the students dressed in red-and-white garb — in this tale of a Black biochemistry student struggling to find his identity amid a predominantly white school.
“I Know What You Did” by Cayce Osborne
Osborne is a local author who lovingly evokes the details of Madison’s west side, right down to the fresh-baked smells from Bagels Forever, in her debut thriller. Her narrator fled the city in the ‘90s as a teenager, but is brought home after a mysterious novel suggests she might be to blame for a fellow West High student’s death.
“My American Unhappiness” by Dean Bakopoulos
The former Madisonian’s second novel is so steeped in the urban environment that the reader can practically trace the routes that the narrator makes through the city. The book mixes comedy and drama while following a scholar who dives into an academic project to avoid facing his own problems.
“A Gate at the Stairs” by Lorrie Moore
An acclaimed short story writer, Moore also doesn't name the town or the school where her novel is set. But it’s pretty clear that Moore, who taught creative writing at UW-Madison for years, was thinking of home when she wrote this book about a young college student hired as a nanny by a mercurial restaurateur.
“The Dive From Clausen’s Pier” by Ann Packer
Packer had a mainstream hit with her 2003 novel about a Madison woman, feeling hemmed in by her shelter life in Madison, until a tragic accident spawns her flight from the city to New York.
“But Not For Long” by Michelle Wildgen
Few things are more Madison-y than co-op housing, as in this local author’s novel about the three residents of a co-op whose relationships break down during what may be the beginning of an environmental apocalypse.
