Novels Set in Michigan – Michigan Fiction Books Free – Detroit

Michigan Fiction Book Collection

Modern works of Michigan fiction, including mystery books set in Michigan, that you can read online or download for free. There are many well-known authors represented, including Michigan authors. Included are horror stories from the Michigan Chillers series, including “Mackinac City Mummies”. Genres include mysteries, crime, romance, adventure, history fiction, juvenile, humor, teen and more. You’ll find short stories too.
Some authors are: Joyce Carol Oates, Christopher Paul Curtis, Cassie Edwards, Michelle Dalton, Michelle Celmer, Steve Hamilton, Patricia Polacco, Gayle Gaymer Martin, Mitch Alborn, Mary Davis, Pearl Cleage, Bridgett M. Davis, Maxine Trottier, Robert Charles Wilson, Joseph Finder, Lacey Alexander, Don Pendleton, Bette Ford, Patrick Jones, Jim Harrison, Colleen Coble, Susan Holtzer, Lucia Raatma, Jody Hedlund, Doulas Allyn, Joseph Heywood.

Books set in Michigan Upper Peninsula – Collection

About 60 books that take place in the Michigan Upper Peninsula, free online. Read online or download. Some Upper Peninsula authors.

Detroit Fiction Collection

Here are about 250 books set in Detroit Michigan. They aren’t self-published; they’re scanned modern books by major authors, including many Michigan writers, free online. They include murder mysteries, detectives, novels about relationships, historical fiction, books about the auto industry, African American novels, and other genres.
Some authors are: Jeffrey Eugenides, Donald Goines, Mike Lupica, Elmore Leonard, Don Pendleton, Bette Ford, Loren Estleman, William J. Couglin, Douglas Allyn, Peter Leonard, Wahida Clark, Gary Hardwick, William X. Kienzle, Cheryl Robinson, Tim Farrington, Olivia Rupprecht, Kelley Armstrong, Rainelle Burton, Alan Lawrence Sitomer, Porter Shreve. Books set in Detroit, includes some black Detroit authors. Michigan fiction books.

A Little Learning is a Murderous Thing

Allin, Lou

Five Star 2005

“Life at Copper University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has been good for Professor of Victorian literature Maddie Temple, but the school year is about to get off to a deadly start. Maddie’s first day of school is marred by the death of a student who fell from the library’s upper floors. Soon after, the Chairman of the school is found blind and paralyzed in his bed and dies soon after. Flo Andrews, the ambitious English Coordinator is the likely suspect. Maddie turns amateur detective to figure out who is behind the strange happenings at Copper University, and uncover a killer — before she learns just how murderous a little learning can be.” -Publisher. “Copper University” (Michigan Technological University) is in “Stoddard” (Houghton MI), in Michigan Upper Peninsula. Upper Peninsula mysteries.

Author notes: Lou Allin (1945-2014) grew up in Chicago and received a PhD in English Renaissance literature in 1977. She then was a professor of English at Cambrian College in Ontario, Canada. She published poetry and novels, including the Belle Palmer mystery series and the Holly Martin series.

The Burning of Rachel Hayes

Allyn, Doug

Five Star 2004

Troubled veterinarian David Westbrook has moved to a small town in northern Michigan to start a new life, but his past soon catches up with him. Despite his attempts to lie low, Westbrook rescues a young boy from a well and immediately finds himself in the spotlight, not to mention haunted by the bones he saw while saving the boy. Were the bones from a poacher who disappeared in the 1950s or from Rachel Hayes, a farm woman who vanished in 1871? Allyn deftly weaves greed, ambition, action, romance and tragedy in dueling mysteries set 133 years apart. Michigan mysteries, Michigan author, Mystery books set in Michigan.

Author notes: Doug Allyn, born 1942, is a Michigan mystery author and a professional musician who travels around the Midwest with his rock band. He has published at least 10 novels and a number of short stories. He lives in Montrose, MI.

Wolves Against the Moon

Altrocchi, Julia Cooley

NY: Macmillan 1945

“The dramatic story of a French Canadian who, from 1794 to 1834, operated a fur-trading business on a large scale, and whose orbit extended from Quebec through the Great Lakes country and south to New Orleans. It is replete with melodrama, filled with details of relations of white men and Indians, touching the history of Mackinac MI, Detroit, and Chicago, and the massacre at Fort Dearborn, the original site of Chicago. All through Joseph Bailly’s prosperous career as trader and friend of Indians, runs the thread of his unwilling infatuation for the French woman who was the wife of his most determined enemy.” -Bkl. Old Northwest. Historical fiction that takes place in Michigan, novels set in Michigan..

Author notes: Julia Cooley Altrocchi (1893-1972) was an author and poet who wrote many works for children and adults. She was raised in Chicago, and graduated from Vassar College in 1914. In 1928 she moved with her husband to Berkeley, California, where he spent his career as a college professor. The couple maintained a summer home near Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan.

Cookie Cutter

Anthony, Sterling

Ballantine 1999

A police lieutenant has her hands full trying to solve a series of murders that have targeted conservative African Americans and ultimately are connected with an upcoming mayoral election. The novel is set in Detroit.
“A work of stunning psychological suspense featuring one of the most complex villains in recent literature, Cookie Cutter is more than a compelling thriller. It is also a gritty, passionate tale of family and lovers, crime and politics, and the black experience in America–on both sides of the law.” -Publisher. Novels set in Michigan.

The Case of the Weird Sisters

Armstrong, Charlotte

Gifford 1943

Alice Brennan is going to marry a millionaire. She has caught the eye of her boss, Innes Whitlock, but before they can tie the knot she must meet his sisters: three women who are so awful that no amount of money is worth enduring their company. One is blind, one is deaf, one is missing an arm, and they all want their brother dead. The accidents begin as soon as Alice and Innes arrive at the sisters’ creaky old Michigan country house, set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Upper Peninsula mystery.

Author notes: Edgar Award–winning Charlotte Armstrong (1905–1969) was one of the finest American authors of classic mystery and suspense. The daughter of an inventor, Armstrong was born in Vulcan Michigan, and attended Barnard College, in New York City. For a decade she wrote plays and poetry, with work produced on Broadway and published in the New Yorker. In the early 1940s, she began writing suspense. Over the next two decades, she wrote more than two dozen novels, winning critical acclaim and a dedicated fan base.

The Weedkiller’s Daughter – Books Based in Detroit Michigan

Arnow, Harriette Simpson

Knopf 1970

As compelling as it is turbulent, The Weedkiller’s Daughter captures a family at the center of the rapidly changing society of midcentury Detroit. Fifteen-year-old Susie greets this new era with a sense of curiosity, while her father rages against it, approaching anything and everything foreign, unconventional, or unfortunate as he does the weeds he perpetually removes from his garden. As Susie seeks escape from her parents’ increasingly restrictive world of order and monotony, she ventures deeper and deeper into a dangerously new territory. The Weedkiller’s Daughter is a gripping psychological exploration of a generation on the brink of indelible—and irreversible—transformation. Fiction books set in Michigan.

Private Heat: An Art Hardin Mystery

Bailey, Robert E.

M. Evans 2007

“Private detective and retired counterintelligence officer Art Hardin stays away from the flashy kind of PI work, preferring to pay his bills by checking up on false disability claims, routine surveillance, and the like. So when the senior partner of one of the premier legal firms in Grand Rapids approaches Hardin about a job protecting his niece from her soon-to-be ex-husband for a couple of days, Hardin isn’t exactly eager to take on the job. However, Hardin finds that the fee offered to too great to pass up. After a hatchet attack, a house burnt down, and a few violent encounters with some crooked cops, Hardin can hardly wait for the case to be over. But when the husband is found murdered, the niece attempts suicide, and Hardin is brought in on a trumped-up warrant for the crime, it is no longer a case that he is willing to walk away from — even if he could.” -Publisher. This mystery novel is set in Grand Rapids Michigan.

Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon

Bakopoulos, Dean

Harcourt 2005

“During the summer of 1991, when times were tough, the men of blue-collar Maple Rock outside Detroit disappeared one by one, with one of them leaving a note saying he was going to the moon. The women rage and weep, then start new lives—finding jobs, remarrying, moving to nicer suburbs. But the fatherless sons, among them 16-year-old Mikey Smolij, flounder for years. After an initial period of freedom and licentiousness, during which they take over the local tavern and serve as studs for older women, these teenage boys live with doubt about whether whatever caused their fathers’ disappearances might get them too.” Booklist
“By deftly welding magic realism with social satire, Bakopoulos captures the dark side of the working-class dream.” N Y Times Book Rev. Novel set in Michigan.

A Lesson Plan for Murder: a Louis Searing and Margaret McMillan Mystery

Baldwin, Richard L.

Buttonwood 1998

No one sheds any tears when overbearing English teacher Marcia Deaver is found dead in her classroom. Some staff members speculate it was a heart attack, or perhaps a suicide, but Liz Hopewell knows that no self-respecting member of the Valerian Hills English Department would kill herself without leaving behind a perfectly penned suicide note, complete with detailed footnotes and obscure literary references.
After the police begin investigating the death as a murder, Liz finds Marcia’s mysteriously coded lesson plans. Convinced that they hold the key to identifying the murderer, normally risk-averse Liz finds herself obsessed with solving the crime. Set in Newberry, Grand Haven, Charlevoix, and other Michigan locales. Michigan mystery novel.

She’ll Learn

Barkley-Staples, Sybil

Sadorian 2002

She’ll Learn untangles the web of life’s trials and tribulations. It’s lesson is being taught each day you live it. Maxine, Sydney, and Indira learn that nothing else matters, but true friendship. They figure that although they lead separate lives their lives all affect each other. Together they always make it through. Free Michigan fiction books.

Who Fought and Bled

Beebe, Ralph

NY: Coward-McCann 1941

“Historical novel of the War of 1812 as it was fought out in the west. Young Roderick Hale of Boston learns from his lawyer that he has fallen her to a vast estate on the Miami river near Dayton, Ohio. Resolving to go west to claim his inheritance, he falls in with Capt. Abijah Stark, western scout and ranger, and the two form an odd partnership. Their joint adventures are described with considerable humor and there is some promise in the early chapters of a plot. This evaporates, and the book should be read as straight narrative giving a clear idea of the times.” -Wisconsin Bulletin. War of 1812, Michigan historical fiction book.

The Resurrectionists

Collins, Michael

Scribner 2002

The Booker and IMPAC Prize-nominated author of The Keepers of Truth delivers a haunting novel of psychological suspense about a wayward family’s search for salvation in an America that has left them behind. The solitude of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan is Michael Collins’s heart of darkness in this compelling story of the unquiet dead. Almost thirty years ago, when Frank Cassidy was five, his parents burned to death in a remote Michigan town. Now Frank’s uncle is dead too, shot by a mysterious stranger who lies in a coma in the local hospital. Frank, working menial jobs to support his unfaithful wife and two children, takes his family north in a series of stolen cars to dispute his cousin’s claim on the family farm. Once there, however, Frank also wants answers to questions about his own past: Who really set the fire that burned the family home and killed his parents? Will the stranger, who hangs between life and death, be able to shed light on long-buried secrets? Brilliant and unsettling, The Resurrectionists is an ironic yet chilling indictment of American culture in the seventies and a compassionate novel about a man struggling to overcome the crimes and burdens of his past. Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense.

Author notes: Michael Collins is an Irish novelist and international ultra-distance runner. His novel The Keepers of Truth was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize. He has also won the Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Lucien Barriere Literary Prize at the Deauville American Film Festival. -Wikipedia.

Blackrobe

Corcoran, Charles

Milwaukee: Bruce. 1937

The fictionalized life and explorations of the Jesuit missionary, Jacques Marquette (1637-1675). Partially set at St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie in Northern Michigan.* Indians — Fiction — 17th century — Mississippi River.

Author Charles Corcoran, was, like Father Marquette, a Catholic Jesuit priest.

See also: Thwaites, Reuben Gold, Father Marquette in Century Past Biographies: M, N & O

Hard Christmas: a Cat Marsala Mystery

D’Amato, Barbara

Berkley 1996

Journalist-turned-sleuth Cat Marsala knows there’s no such thing as easy money. But a feature story on Christmas tree farming does sound relaxing. And once she arrives at the DeGraaf farm, Cat finds a friendly, colorful family whose hard work spans generations. Then Cat learns about the mysterious death of Henry DeGraaf, Sr., the previous spring, and a palpable tension replaces the cheery air. Could the DeGraaf family closet be rife with skeletons? When a fresh corpse turns up, she’s sure of it. Michigan mystery novel set in the Holland area.

“Author Notes: Barbara D’Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. She was born in Michigan. D’Amato held jobs as a carpenter on magic shows, assistant surgical orderly, assistant to a wild animal act, stage manager, and legal researcher. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime International and serves on the board of the Mystery Writers of America. D’Amato wrote a children’s musical, The Magic of Young Houdini, and two musical comedies for adults. She was nominated for the Anthony award for her novel On My Honor and was the runner-up for the Nero Wolfe Award for the novel Hard Women. The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery won the Anthony and Agatha Awards for Best True Crime and was used as the basis for a segment on the TV show, Unsolved Mysteries. -Bowker Author Biography.

Slouching Towards Kalamazoo

De Vries, Peter

Penguin 1984

“It is 1963 in an unnamed town in North Dakota, and Anthony Thrasher is languishing for a second year in eighth grade. Prematurely sophisticated, young Anthony spends too much time reading Joyce, Eliot, and Dylan Thomas but not enough time studying the War of 1812 or obtuse triangles. A tutor is hired, and this “modern Hester Prynne” offers Anthony lessons that ultimately free him from eighth grade and situate her on the cusp of the American sexual revolution. Anthony’s restless adolescent voice is perfectly suited to De Vries’s blend of erudite wit and silliness-not to mention his fascination with both language and female anatomy-and it propels ‘Slouching Towards Kalamazoo’ through theological debates and quandaries both dermatological and ethical, while soaring on the De Vriesian hallmark of scrambling conventional wisdom for comic effect.” -Publisher. Fiction book partly set in Kalamazoo Michigan.

Author Notes: Peter de Vries (1910-1993) was born in Chicago and graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan in 1931. His first novel, But Who Wakes the Bugler?, was published in 1940 and illustrated by the cartoonist Charles Addams. His other works include No But I Saw the Movie, Comfort Me with Apples, The Tents of Wickedness, The Blood of the Lamb, and Madder Music.

Home for Christmas

Douglas, Lloyd C.

Houghton 1937

Novelette about five prosperous brothers and sisters who return to the old homestead to celebrate Christmas. Fiction books set in Michigan.
Lloyd Cassel Douglas was an American minister and author. Douglas was one of the most popular American authors of his time, although he did not write his first novel until he was 50. -Wikipedia.

A Spy in Old Detroit

Emery, Anne

Chicago: Rand McNally 1963

Despite his conflicting feelings of loyalty, a fifteen-year-old French boy becomes a spy for the British during Pontiac’s siege of Detroit in 1763. Historical fiction books set in Michigan.* Pontiac’s Conspiracy, 1763-1765 — Fiction,

Author: Anne Emery is a lawyer and the author of the Collins-Burke mystery series, set in Halifax, Cape Breton, Ireland, London, and New York. She has won two Arthur Ellis Awards, an Independent Publisher Book Awards silver medal, and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.

The Loon Feather

Fuller, Iola

Harcourt 1940

The story of an Indian girl destined to grow up with the incompatible traditions of her own people and of the white traders on Mackinac Island. A fictionized autobiography of Tecumseh’s daughter. Setting is the Mackinac region in the early 1800’s.

Author notes: Iola Fuller (1906–1993) (later Iola Fuller Goodspeed McCoy), born in Marcellus, MI, was a librarian and writer. Her first novel, The Loon Feather, won the 1939 Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan. During World War II, 150,000 copies of the book were printed as Armed Services Editions; inexpensive paperbacks which the Army and Navy Library Services distributed free of charge to members of the American armed forces.

Curse of the White Panther: A Story of the Days of the Toledo War

Greene, Merritt

Hillsdale, Mich: 1960

This novel is the second in a 3-book sequence. The first book, The Land Lies Pretty, is available on this web page. In this second volume, Martin Langdon has further adventures in southern Michigan during the period of 1833 to 1835, including a role in the Toledo War. The third book in the series, Forgotten Yesterdays: A Tale of Early Michigan, was not found online.

Merritt William Green (1897-1972) was a Toledo, Ohio lawyer who apparently moved to Hillsdale, MI, at some point (retirement?), where he wrote plays and historical novels.

The Land Lies Pretty “Op-Jah-Mo-Mak-Ya”

A story of the Great Sauk Trail in 1832 with an Introduction to the Northwest Territory

Green, Merritt

Hillsdale School Supply 1959

“This story is laid at the time when the pioneers and Indians were living together in the wilderness of southern Michigan. If, however, the reader wants to enjoy gruesome tales of settlers being murdered and slaughtered by the Indians he will be disappointed; for this book sincerely attempts to depict the conditions as they actually were. Many of the incidents are historically true. The Indian lore and information was obtained from Now-qua-oum, a Potowatomi Indian who now lives near Athens, and whose ancestors roamed the forests of southern Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana. The Great Sauk Trail was then, as now, the shortest route between Detroit and Chicago. It became the Chicago Turnpike, and is now designated as U.S. Highway 112, named the Pulaski Memorial Highway.” -Author’s Preface. This first novel of a 3-book sequence is set in ‘Grannisville’, which may be Jonesville, MI.

Trumpet in the Wilderness

Harper, Robert S.

NY: Mill 1940

“Two dramatic engagements in the War of 1812 – Colonel Cass’s Detroit campaign and Perry’s victory on Lake Erie – are re-created with an excellent balance between romance and research.” Books set in Michigan.

Robert S. Harper was an Ohio author and historian with expertise in the Civil War.

Farmer

Harrison, Jim

Viking 1976

In Farmer, Jim Harrison tells the story of Joseph, a forty-three-year-old farmer-schoolteacher who suddenly finds himself at a crossroads. Forced to choose between two lovers—one a tantalizing young student, the other his beautiful childhood friend—he must also decide whether or not to stay on the farm or finally seek the wider, more worldly horizons he has avoided all his life. Farmer is a wondrous blend of insight, storytelling, and the author’s uncanny ability to evoke the mysteries and beauties of the natural world. Books set in Michigan.

Author Notes: James Thomas Harrison (1937-2016) was born in Grayling, Michigan. After a B.A. and M.A. in comparative literature from Michigan State University in 1960 and 1964, he briefly taught English at SUNY- Stony Brook. During his lifetime, he wrote 14 collections of poetry, 21 volumes of fiction, two books of essays, a memoir, and a children’s book. His novel, Legends of the Fall, was adapted into a feature film starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. Harrison also wrote the screenplay for the movie. – Bowker author bio. Novel set in Michigan.

Hubbard’s Trail

Holt, Alfred Hubbard

Chicago: Erle Press 1952

Fictionalized biography of Gurdon Hubbard, fur-trader and pioneer merchant. Partially set in Fort Mackinac and in the Muskegon River area.*

See also: Hubbard, Gurdon S., The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, Pa-pa-ma-ta-be, “The Swift Walker” in Biographies & Memoirs in Illinois History

Murder Makes the Wheels Go ‘Round

Lathen, Emma

MacMillan 1966

When John Putnam Thatcher, “a New York banker, goes to Detroit to weigh the possibilities of underwriting Michigan Motors’ new stock issue, he finds that Jensen, who has just finished a jail term for price-fixing, is demanding reinstatement and making threats to the man who betrayed him. But it is Jensen who is murdered.” Buyer’s Guide
It is “witty, literate, complicated.” Library J.

Author Note: For more than a decade after Emma Lathen’s first novel, ‘Banking on Death’, in 1961, her readers wondered who was this mysterious woman who was so well-versed in investment banking and business operations. The truth came out in the 1970s; Emma Lathen was not a woman – she was two women. Mary Jane Latsis and Martha Henissart met at Harvard in 1952 when both were in their thirties and working on postgrad degrees. They shared a love of fiction and kept in touch and, years later, began collaborating on novels while pursuing their separate careers in different places.

Gabriel’s Search

Lutes, Della T.

Boston: Little, Brown 1940

“The tang and gusto of frontier living in the 1830’s is highlighted in this story of a newcomer’s adjustment to a community near Jackson.”
“A novel of pioneer life in Michigan in the early 1800’s. The story of the agnostic, Gabe Reed, and how he was looked upon by his God-fearing neighbors is full of the realistic details of the daily life of the period.”

Author notes: Della T. Lutes (1867-1942) was raised on a farm near Jackson, MI. She became a teacher at 16 when she finished high school, working first in Jackson and then in Detroit. She married and remained in Detroit until about 1907, publishing her first book in 1906. She then moved to Cooperstown, NY to join the staff of the magazine ‘American Motherhood’. She remained in Cooperstown for the rest of her life, writing short stories and editing women’s magazines. She won a National Book Award in 1936 for her book ‘Country Kitchens’.

Mackinac Passage: A Summer Adventure

Lytle, Robert A.

Thunder Bay 1995

When the Jenkins family arrives at their Straits of Mackinac summer cottage, 15-year-old Pete Jenkins, meets and befriends three other teens. But before long, in a summer already filled with fishing, learning to sail, and making new friends, the four teens stumble across evidence of a counterfeit money scheme, which they suspect is run by a recluse writer named Harold Geetings. Their investigation leads them to nearby Mackinac Island on which they discover an extensive Underworld operation, and where their curiosity endangers their lives when they witness the murder of one of the gang! Pete and his friends find the adventure of a lifetime in this exciting, suspenseful story for young adults set in beautiful islands of Les Cheneaux and on Mackinac Island in northern Michigan.

The Citadel of the Lakes

Orr, Myron David

Dodd 1952

“The reader relives the turbulent and hazardous days when England and the United States contended for the prize of Mackinac Island and the control of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. Myron David Orr has taken as his central point, the fur trader, John Jacob Astor, who, because of his insatiable lust for money, betrays his country and eliminates all those traders who defy him in his conquest of the Northwest Territory fur trade. The sinister influence of Astor dominates and encompasses the lives of all the people of this pioneer outpost, causing disastrous results to the armed forces of the United States, as well as personal tragedies to the families themselves. Out of a lifetime spent on the scene, and 25 years of research gathering original letters and military reports, Mr. Orr has presented an authentic picture of intrigue, love, violence, and hate.” -Publisher.

Mission to Mackinac

Orr, Myron David

Dodd 1956

Story of English-French conflict in the area of Mackinac Island prior to the War of 1812. Books set in Michigan.

Author notes: Dr. Myron David Orr (1831-1891) was raised and educated in Genesee County, NY, being trained as a medical doctor. In 1854 he moved to Michigan and joined a medical practice in Flint. In 1864 he moved his family to a farm in Almer (thumb area), and raised fruit. He also served in a number of local government positions, including school inspector, justice of the peace, and probate judge. He published at least five novels in the genre of Michigan historical fiction.

North of Saginaw Bay

Petersen, E. J. (Pete)

Sand Lake, MI: Tall Timber 1952

“In North of Saginaw Bay, E. J. (Pete) Petersen, himself an old-time lumberman and timber-cruiser, retells and relives for the reader those days when Michigan’s now famous resort and vacationland resounded to the ring of the lumberman’s axe and the crash of falling timber. In this story of young Clay Woods and his desperate uphill battle for justice, the reader will form an intimate acquaintance with the rugged pioneers, their friends among the Indians, like Chief Green-sky, and the many other characters who made frontier life colorful, such as the gnarled little preacher who become one of the heroes of the tale.” -Book jacket.

The White Squaw; A Sequel to “North of Saginaw Bay”

Petersen, E. J. (Pete)

Sand Lake, MI: Tall Timber 1954

See the entry above.

Once a Wilderness

Pound, Arthur

NY: Reynal & Hitchcock 1937

“The changing background of our state [Michigan] from agriculture to industry is exemplified in this story of the Mark family, pioneer farmers in the vicinity of Pontiac.”
“This engaging family chronicle, opening in 1890, has for its background Mark section the 640 acre Michigan farm owned by Captain John Mark, on which he and all of his children and their families still lived. Farm activities, especially cattle breeding, make a vivid background, but the lively story is about the Marks themselves, especially the lusty and vigorous patriarch, Captain John.”- Bkl.

Author notes: Arthur Pound (1884-1966) was born in Pontiac, MI and made his living mainly as an editor and editorial writer at newspapers for many years. In 1935 he was made a research professor of American History at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, and from 1940 to 1944 he was the State Historian and Director of Archives and History in New York. He published at least ten historical books, including a couple of industrial histories, and corporate histories of General Motors and General Electric.

The Adventures of Captain McCargo

Ratigan, William

NY: Random House 1956

“Dashing Great Lakes Captain matches wits with danger from Detroit to the Upper Peninsula.”

Author notes: William Ratigan (1910-1984) grew up in Detroit. In college he was an all-Dixie quarterback at the University of Chattanooga, and then became a respected radio journalist, holding important positions at NBC during WWII. After the war be brought his family back to Michigan, buying a home in Charlevoix, MI, where he operated a tiny used bookstore in a converted fishing shanty and wrote books. His most popular book was ‘Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals’. -Charlevoix Courier.

A Land I Will Show Thee

Schoolland, Marian M.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1954

“The Founding of Holland, Michigan, by a small group of Dutch immigrants seeking a religious refuge.” Novels set in Michigan.

Author notes: Marian M. Schoolland (1902-1984) was the daughter of a Dutch immigrant professor at the minister-training institution that became Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, MI. She was a 1934 graduate of Calvin College, going on to a teaching career in elementary school while also translating, editing, and writing articles and books. Most of her books were for children, and of those, her best known were devotional. -Banner of Truth website.

The Original

Smith, Larry

Herder & Herder 1972

Picture of the grim, unremitting labor that was the reality of farm life at the turn of the century.

Larry Smith was a newspaper and magazine editor with the New York Times and Parade magazine, where he was managing editor for nineteen years. Former president of the Overseas Press Club of America, he lives in Norwalk, Connecticut. The U.S. Marine Corps presented him with the Esprit de Corps Award for his work with veterans and active duty service personnel.

F.O.B. Detroit

Smitter, Wessel

Harper 1938

“Bennie, who accepts his work in the Holt automobile plant uncritically, asking nothing better of life than to become a ‘straw boss’, tells in his own vernacular the story of his friend Russ, a former lumberjack, whose restlessness and longing for independence make it impossible for him to adjust himself to the stultifying regimentation of the factory’s assembly line. A compact, dramatic novel which is also an indictment of the modern industrial system.” – N.Y. libraries.

Author notes: Wessel Smitter (1892-1951) was born to Dutch immigrants in Plainfield, MI. He graduated from U of M in 1922 and worked in advertising for one of the Detroit auto makers. He detested the “industrial machine” way of life and abruptly left for Hollywood, where he finished his novel ‘F.O.B. Detroit’. A New York Times review compared him to John Steinbeck, and the book was made into a movie, ‘Reaching for the Sun’, in 1941. – IMDb website.

The Long Winter Ends

Thomas, Newton G.

NY: Macmillan 1941

Tells the story of a year in the life of a young emigrant miner who leaves Cornwall in the southwest of England to work in the copper mines of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Through Jim’s story, The Long Winter Ends offers a glimpse into the lives of an often neglected emigrant group that played an important role in the development of the Great Lake and American mining industries since the 1840s. Drawing on his own experiences as a young Cornish immigrant in the mining communities of the Upper Peninsula, Thomas incorporated firsthand knowledge of the work routines and vocabulary of underground mining into this novel. This narrative traces the Cornish emigrant experience from the failure of the mines in Cornwall, their hopes to preserve Cornish traditions in America, and then finally the acceptance of a future in America.

What End But Love

Webber, Gordon

Little 1959

Memories of farm life and industrial growth set in the framework of a family reunion on a Michigan farm near the automobile factories in 1934. Michigan fiction books.

Author notes: Gordon Webber (1912-1986) was raised in Linden, MI and graduated from college in Jamestown, ND in 1934. He then earned an M.A. in journalism at Univ. of Michigan, and was working as a writer for NBC before the war. In WWII he served in the Navy as a gunnery officer, receiving a Navy commendation at the Normandy invasion. He went on to write short stories, film scripts, and four novels during a post-war career at an advertising agency. In 1952 he was the founding president of the Classic Car Club of America.

Indian Affairs

Woiwode, Larry

Atheneum 1992

Sequel to ‘What I’m Going to Do, I Think’. This novel set in Michigan is, “in part, an anatomy of a marriage strained by the death of a baby and racial differences: Chris is a native American and Ellen a white Christian Scientist. They have returned to their home turf to stay in Ellen’s grandparents’ cabin so Chris can work on his dissertation about the Michigan poet Roethke in peace and quiet, but they get very little of either. . . Both Chris and Ellen fall into depression. Chris is suffering an identity crisis over the conflict between his native American heritage and his academic pursuits, while Ellen decides to write about her grief over being childless.” -Booklist
“Indian Affairs’ is an intelligent, psychologically harrowing book.” N Y Times Book Rev.

Author notes: Larry Woiwode was born in Carrington, North Dakota on October 30, 1941. He went to the University of Illinois, but did not graduate. His short stories and poetry appeared in several magazines including Harper’s, Partisan Review, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. His first novel, What I’m Going to Do, I Think, was published in 1969. His other novels included Beyond the Bedroom Wall: A Family Album, Poppa John, Born Brothers, and Indian Affairs. He also wrote a collection of poems entitled Even Tide. He was named North Dakota Poet Laureate in 1995. -Bowker author biography

Whistlestop

Wolff, Maritta M.

Random House 1941

Maritta Wolff’s 1941 masterpiece about small-town Midwestern life in post-Depression America.
Whistle Stop, published to rave reviews and astonishing commercial success, is the story of the Veech family, an oversize, poverty-stricken tribe trying to make good in a cruel world. Through the course of a punishingly hot summer, we experience life with the six children and three adult Veeches as they bicker, brawl, make up, and provide titillating morsels of scandal for the neighborhood. A work of darkly comic grotesque, replete with shades of Flannery O’Connor, Whistle Stop is also a wrenching and earnest rumination on the tragedy of thwarted love.

Author notes: Maritta Martin Wolff (1918-2002) was born at Grass Lake, MI, growing up on her grandparents’ farm and attending a one-room school. She attended Univ. of Michigan, and wrote her first novel, ‘Whistlestop’, for a writing class in her senior year. Despite vulgar dialogue and themes of incest and violence it won a university prize. When it was published in 1941 it was a best-seller and was praised by author Sinclair Lewis as the most important novel of the year. It was later adapted as a 1946 movie. Her second novel, Night Shift (1942) was also highly praised, and became the 1946 film ‘The Man I Love’. She wrote a total of 7 novels, the last one completed in 1972 but not published until after her death.