G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men.” Good old Chesterton may have been writing about the institution of family outside the city, but he may as well also have been summarizing the appeal of a particular kind of fiction: small town stories.
Tales of small town living can take a range of paths. On one end, you have stories that are like snow globes capturing the nostalgic idyll of small town living offering simpler, or better, times. Those tales can be soothing balms, like the warm steam coming up from a freshly brewed tea as you’re about to take your first sip. On the other end, there are stories that unmask the romanticism of small town simplicity as a shallow facade, barely hiding long-running unhappiness, secrets, or outright corruptions.
Some stories, like Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Anything is Possible, can find the truth somewhere in between. The book’s nine interconnected stories present a kaleidoscope (or variety and divergences, if you will) of human foibles and vulnerability. She uses Amgash, Illinois as a keyhole into the inner hearts of its inhabitants, and in turn uses them as a keyhole into the inner hearts of us all. It is something that all small town fiction, whether optimistic or cynical, does to one degree or another.
Which brings us back to our friend G.K. Chesterton’s point: There’s a breadth of life to be found in small towns, and that’s why it’s always so welcome when masters of fiction recognize small towns as the microcosms they can be, finding within them a range of stories to entertain and enlighten us.
With that in mind, here are ten all-time great works of small town fiction that do just that: show off what stories can be told about Main Street, U.S.A. and its inhabitants — whether you like your small town tales in the key of Bedford Falls, Twin Peaks, or somewhere in the middle.
If life for Luke Danes and Stars Hollow were a little more rough, you’d get Miles Roby and the town of Empire Falls, Maine in Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The manager of a local restaurant, Miles is surrounded by a motley crew of family, friends, exes, and enemies who are all struggling with duty, regret, and no small share of buried secrets that become increasingly unveiled.
This Oprah-approved classic dives into the unhappy lives of an alcoholic, a restaurant owner, a teenage girl, a doctor, and a deaf-mute in a town in the Deep South. The title gives you a clue about the tone of the novel, nicely conveyed by Tony Award-winner Cherry Jones’ melancholy reading. Characters face personal tragedies and struggle to find ways to keep going, all while McCullers also takes on big issues (racism, sexuality, politics) writ small within the lives of folk just trying to get by.
There are novels about the dark underbelly of small towns, and then there’s It, which puts an ancient shape-shifting monster in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine and has it terrorize a tight-knit group of children. It is one of King’s creepiest novels (it has evil clowns, how can it not be?) but it’s not just effective in its scares. It’s also an accomplished look at troubled kids coming of age and the non-supernatural darkness that can lurk behind the innocent facades of some towns. By the way, now’s a good time to check out It before the upcoming film adaptation hits theaters this year.
On the one hand, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, set in Sussex, England, shows the small-mindedness (directed here at the local Pakistani community) found in some small towns, as well as rifts that form over tradition, culture, and family. On the other hand, the novel’s delight lies in its charming central romance between a retired Englishman and a Pakistani shopkeeper who look to overcome all of it. It’s a novel that leaves your heart warmer than a tart fresh out of the oven.
Kent Haruf was one of literature’s great chroniclers of small town life, and Plainsong shows why. A small cluster of lonely characters in rural Colorado find themselves at turning points, and while their stories aren’t without an aching sadness, they’re alao not without hope. That’s the joy of Haruf, and the gentle poignancy with which he shows how small towns can isolate and bring together, and sometimes reward lives of quiet desperation with something just a little bit better.
If you took the Big Chill gang, uncomplicated their lives a touch, switched out The Temptations for Bon Iver, and moved everyone to Little Wing, Wisconsin, you might get the group of friends at the core of Shotgun Lovesongs — including one actually inspired by Bon Iver (whom Butler went to high school with). There’s drama and secrets here to be sure, but this countryside breeze of a novel is more about the depths of friendships formed in small towns, and those who struggle to get on and get by. The novel’s casual, laid-back quality is especially nicely conveyed by the narrators who take on each of the character’s chapters.
Literary thriller Where All the Light Tends to Go feels grimy in the best way as it takes us inside the criminal underworld of an Appalachian town where a young man, caught up in his father’s meth business, struggles to get out with the girl he loves. Be sure to dig into MacLeod Andrews’ narration, which has a Matthew McConaughey “Alright, alright, alright” quality that makes the story’s first-person perspective feel like you’re listening to a friend tell a “too crazy to be true” story over barbeque and cold beers.
Almost 100 years old, Winesburg, Ohio is the grandparent to many of the small town novels on this list. Specifically in its approach: individual chapters about different people in the small town who, nonetheless, cross paths. Anderson’s novel stands out not just for its influence, but also the power of its through-and-through “We gotta get out of this town” stories. Here writers, ministers, and doctors all harbor guilt, shame, and unfulfilled desires that find them eyeing the outer town limits and what lies beyond.
You probably know the movie adaptation, which launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career, but the novel is well worth seeking out, too — for its prose alone. Set in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone follows a young girl on an Odyssey-like journey to find her father to seek his help in saving their home. She makes her way through a town full of corruption, poverty, and crime that shows that not all small towns are Stars Hollow, nor places everyone can escape. The story is haunting enough as it is, but it’s nearly impossible to not feel it in your bones (no pun intended) when you hear Emma Galvin’s melancholy reading.
