Kathy Hamilton Today we’re looking at the 10 best books set in New York City. I really think that some cities lend themselves to fiction more than others. They have an aura or vibrancy that attracts authors to write about them, whether contemporary or historical fiction. New York is one of those cities! Don’t you think?
New York looms large in Fiction. In a way that few other places can (except maybe Paris or London), it captures our imaginations and brim with possibility and inspiration. The City breathes life into each of the books in this list, at times almost becoming a character in its own right.
In fact, when I was compiling this list of Best Books Set in New York City it was actually hard to narrow down the choices to 10. The five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island – serve as the backdrop for so many iconic stories! There was an added challenge too. The Gilded Age, The Jazz Age, Past, Present, Future, even Gotham…to name but a few! Which New York to speak about? Hopefully, you’ll agree that New York, in all its realities is somewhat depicted here.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
When the beautiful Countess Olenska returns to rigidly conventional society of New York it sends reverberations throughout society. Newland Archer is about to announce his engagement to society darling May Welland when he meets the Countess. Her sorrowful eyes, her tragic worldliness and her air of unapproachability attract the sensitive Newland and, almost against their will, a passionate bond develops between them. But Archer’s life has no place for passion and, with society on the side of May and all she stands for, he finds himself drawn into a bitter conflict between love and duty.
Kicking off the best books set in New York is The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. For me, there is no better book to fully capture the strange, stultified atmosphere of the gilded age. For many, The Gilded Age and New York go hand in hand and this Pre-WWI era is often looked back on fondly. However, the illusion is shattered in this beautifully written book which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Notably, this was the first book by a woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. A breathtaking classic, worthy of a place in this list.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Nolan family are first-generation immigrants to the United States. Originating in Ireland and Austria, their life in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn is poor and deprived, but their sacrifices make it possible for their children to grow up in a land of boundless opportunity. Francie Nolan is the eldest daughter of the family. Alert, imaginative and resourceful, her journey through the first years of a century of profound change is difficult – and transformative. But amid the poverty and suffering among the poor of Brooklyn, there is hope, and the prospect of a brighter future.
Betty Smith’s debut novel is universally regarded as a modern classic. So it’s a perfect book to include in the best books set in New York. This essential New York bildungsroman is not defined by its big moments. Instead, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn focuses in on the small details that make up a life. That’s not to say this is a novel about small things, though. It’s a sprawling tale of an immigrant family in early 20th-century Brooklyn. For many, this book is one of the great distinctively American novels.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
When four classmates move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken. Tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is their friend Jude. By midlife, he is a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man. His mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is anything but little! It comes in at a hefty 720 pages, easily making it one of the longest on the list of best books set in New York. But it’s 720 pages well spent. In The Atlantic, Garth Greenwell suggested that A Little Life is “the long-awaited gay novel”: “It engages with aesthetic modes long coded as queer: melodrama, sentimental fiction, grand opera. By violating the canons of current literary taste, by embracing melodrama and exaggeration and sentiment, it can access emotional truth denied more modest means of expression.”
Jazz by Toni Morrison
In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life.
Jazz by Toni Morrison is written by a literary heavyweight. She’s won both the Pulitzer Prize and The Nobel Prize for Literature, amongst others. And Her beautiful and easily distinguishable writing style is a signature of her style. Jazz is the second in her Dantesque trilogy on African-American history, beginning with Beloved (1987) and ending with Paradise (1997). I chose this book to feature in the best books set in New York because it captures a grittier side to New York.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age. But as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion, where the party never seems to end, he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby’s origins and desires. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life, Gatsby is hiding a secret. A silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon, this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.
Ah! The book you’ve probably been waiting for. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a brilliant depiction of the hedonistic excess and tragic reality of 1920s America. Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusionment of post-war America. And the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time and place. In chronicling Gatsby’s tragic pursuit of his dream – Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion and reality. This book is almost too famous to accurately sum up. However, it is more than worth a read.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist, trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America – the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth. With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.
Next up is another Pulitzer Prize winner! Are you sensing a theme? It turns out the best books set in New York are quite often Pulitzer Prize winners too. Jewish mysticism meets Americana in his novel which brings the world of comic books to life. Michael Chabon’s greatest skill lies in his combination of imaginative fiction and practical research, so the world of 1940s New York seems to seethe with life. But despite it’s WWII setting, this book manages to bring an entirely fresh perspective. A totally original and exciting adventure story that will keep you up to the wee hours reading.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther’s life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women’s aspirations seriously.
So much about Sylvia Plath’s life and career is overshadowed by her tragic suicide. Readers look to her work for clues and none more so than in her semi-autobiographical (and only) novel. A classic work of Anglo-American feminist literature. The Bell Jar was published in the UK just a month before Sylvia Plath’s suicide. But Plath invited the comparisons. ‘what I’ve done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalising to add colour – it’s a potboiler really.’ Despite the inevitable comparisons, The Bell Jar is more than a glimpse at Plath’s life. It’s about ambition and desire, a woman’s refusal to live life as a doormat. Esther wants everything. She’s funny, vivid, extreme. It’s a must-read.
Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee
Park’s harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions. To remember everything he learns. And most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician, his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he is amid not only the conflicts within himself but also within the ethnic and political tensions of the New York City streets.
This is an intriguing novel and one that almost didn’t make the cut for best books set in New York. But in the end, it more than justifies its place here. In the current climate in the US, I think Native Speaker has a lot to say about America’s relationship with immigration. Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee is about loyalties and identity. About the choices, you make when one or both are tested. It’s a fascinating look at what it feels like to be an immigrant in America but also a stylish spy thriller. Native Speaker won the Hemmingway award for the best first novel and I think that says a lot about the style of this book.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother and clings to the thing that most reminds him of her. A small, captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, he is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
Yep, you guessed it! Another Pulitzer Prize winner. I may as well have called this list the best Pulitzer Prize winning novels! Plot, character and stylish writing are all great – but somehow this novel manages to have more. In the last few pages, all the serious, big, complicated ideas beneath the surface, suddenly held up to the light reveal their meaning. What remains is a book that it transports you beyond fiction and stays with you long after you’ve finished.
City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling
In 1661, Lucas Turner, and his sister Sally stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. They aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, both make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire.
It only seems right that we end our list of Best Novels set in New York at the beginning. The beginning of New York that is. City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling is an engrossing historical fiction about the birth of a great city. It paints a completely different picture of New York. It’s dirty, menacing and untamed. But also full of promise. If you’re a fan of rose-tinted historical fiction then look away now! Swerlings novel is not a romantic look at yesteryear but an attempt at a realistic depiction of a 17th Century City. Plus, if you get hooked, it’s actually part of a trilogy!
That wraps up the best books set in New York City
Are your favourites here? Do you think I missed any important books from the list? Honestly, I could have kept this blog post going on for ages, since there’s such a wealth of fiction about New York! Let me know what you think.
