NOVEL SET IN PENNSYLVANIA

logo-meeting-benchesSome famous books you might not have known were set in Pennsylvania? As you know, the setting of a book determines many details about the story, but not only the natural landscape in which the characters move. Some authors create new worlds for their stories, while some choose places that are familiar. Here are three examples of authors who situated their masterpieces right here, in Pennsylvania: J.D. Salinger,

pennsylvania_2_1THE CATCHER IN THE RYE – J.D. Salinger

The novel https://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-salinger-ebook/dp/B01CYVHRO4 it begins at Holden Caulfield’s fictional prep school that Salinger places in Agerstown (Pennsylvania), though much of the classic tale takes place in New York City. Holden Caulfield is the narrator, the one that at the time of the events described is sixteen. The story begins on a Saturday. He has just been expelled from Pencey college, because he supported an insufficient number of tests and must return home. Page after page, you will find a girl who comes to the meeting with a suitcase, until you get to Central Park, where the protagonist buys to her ticket for a carousel. The last words of the narrator mention tuberculosis that hit him, pushing him to be hospitalized for a period in a sanatorium, then resuming his studies.

pennsylvania_3_1THE PITTSBURH CYCLE – August Wilson

The Pittsburgh Cycle https://www.amazon.com/August-Wilsons-Pittsburgh-Cycle-Perspectives-ebook/dp/B01B6KV0I8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1478514000&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Pittsburgh+Cycle%2C+August+Wilson consists of ten plays, most of which take place in the hill district of Pittsburgh. One of Pittsburgh’s claims-to-fame is its famous playwright, August Wilson. The most famous of these plays are Seven Guitars, The Piano Lesson, and Fences. The cycle is also known as his ‘Century Cycle’. The plays are listed below followed by the year he wrote them, the decade they reflect and a mini plot summary. August Wilson’s crowning achievement, is The Pittsburgh Cycle (his series of ten plays that charts the African American experience throughout the twentieth century). All of them are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District (except for one, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is set in Chicago).

pennsylvania_novel_1_1JULIET, NAKED – Nick Hornby

The novel about love triangles, takes place in rural Pennsylvania https://www.amazon.com/Juliet-Naked-Nick-Hornby/dp/1594484775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478514587&sr=1-1&keywords=Juliet%2C+Naked%2C+Nick+Hornby Nick Hornby uses this intriguing canvas to explore why it is we so often let the early promise of relationships, ambition, and indeed life, evaporate. And he comes to some surprisingly optimistic conclusions about the struggle to live up to one’s promise. Music and messy relationships, in this funny and touching novel that thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption.

Instagram

Check Also

THE FORGOTTEN WRITER OF THE INDONESIAN REVOLUTION – Among the novels, children’s stories and poems by Siti Rukiah

Publishing literary works in postcolonial Indonesia Although her name is mention in Indonesian textbooks, few …