Book Tour: Six Memorable Tomes Set in Indiana

The Fault in our Stars (John Green, 2012)
You know the drill: Two cancer-stricken teenagers meet at a support group and fall in love and … well, bring your hanky.
Local Scenery: Green’s mega-bestseller name-checks Indy locations like 100 Acres at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Castleton Square Mall, Holliday Park, and Crown Hill Cemetery.
 
A Girl Named Zippy (Haven Kimmel, 2001)
This memoir of growing up in 1960s Mooreland, Indiana, was a New York Times bestseller.
Local Scenery: Main Street in Mooreland, about one hour east of Indy.
 
A Girl of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton-Porter, 1909)
The tale of good-hearted, inimitable Elnora Comstock, who catches rare moths to put herself through high school, evolves into a sweet romance.
Local Scenery: Visit the Limberlost State Historic Site to see the 1895 Queen Anne–style log-cabin home of Stratton-Porter—and the swamp that inspired her most famous work.

 
The Magnificent Ambersons (Booth Tarkington, 1918)
The U.S. prospers as the fortunes of an upper-class Indianapolis family decline over three generations, between the end of the Civil War and the early 20th century.
Local Scenery: The historic boulevards of Woodruff Place, where Tarkington once lived, are the novel’s unofficial setting.
 
Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler’s List (Michael Martone, 1990)
A collection of 17 stories about famous and less-than-famous Indiana residents from a Fort Wayne native.
Local Scenery: The titular town, of course, plus Santa Claus, French Lick, and Muncie.
 
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (Kurt Vonnegut, 1965)
Set in fictional Rosewater County, Indiana, this novel focuses on a philanthropist whom a family lawyer is attempting to have declared insane so a distant relative can gain control of the estate. Local Scenery: Who knows? Indy native Vonnegut could have based his setting on any number of rural Indiana counties.
 
 
This article appeared in The Ticket, a 2014 special publication.