12 Books Set in Our Favorite Southern Cities

Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Anne Tyler has explored Baltimore life in many of her novels, including A Spool of Blue Thread, her 20^th novel, which was published in 2015. 

Location: Nashville, Tennessee

This Nashville-set novel is a story about the drama and scandal that erupts in one of the city's private schools and the repercussions for the families involved.

Location: Houston, Texas

Attica Locke's debut novel is set in Houston, Texas, in 1981 and is a crime thriller about a lawyer and the mystery that threatens to engulf his life.

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

This 1987 novel is set in Alabama. The Whistle Stop Café is an establishment located "right outside of Birmingham" that's "always good for a meal or two" (20).

Location: Charleston, South Carolina

Set in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early nineteenth century, this book is a sweeping journey through the century and through the South following a character inspired by Sarah Grimké, an American abolitionist and suffragist.

Location: Washington, D.C.

This experimental novel is set near Washington, D.C. It takes place in a Georgetown crypt in 1862 after the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie Lincoln.

Location: Memphis, Tennessee

This novel takes place in Memphis, Tennessee, over 70 years in the life of a Black Southern family and explores ideas of family, connection, art, and inheritance.

Location: Savannah, Georgia

The iconic cover of this book features Bird Girl, a statue with a cast placed first in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery and now relocated to Telfair Academy, part of the Telfair Museums. 

Location: Houston, Texas

A mother and her daughter are at the heart of this story, which is set in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, Texas, and was made into a 1983 film directed by James L. Brooks.

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Made into a 1993 movie starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, this novel is set in New Orleans, where a law student flees when she uncovers a government conspiracy.

Location: Lexington, Kentucky

A spotlight fell on this book thanks to a recent miniseries adaptation of the story, which follows Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy in 1950s Lexington, Kentucky.

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Set in Atlanta in the 1980s, Tayari Jones's novel Silver Sparrow explores the relationship between two young neighbors and the complications that arise when family secrets begin to surface.