Thirteen of the greatest Midwestern books

Anna Clark is a 2010 fellow with the Peter Jennings Center for Journalists and the Constitution. Her writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Salon, The Nation, UTNE Reader, among many others.

For The Daily Beast she named 13 essential works of fiction to come out of the Midwest, including:

Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser

It’s a classic story: Country girl goes to the big city—in this case Chicago—to make her fortune. Carrie is 18 when she leaves her family home in rural Wisconsin to move in with her sister and her husband. After toiling in a shoe factory to raise her share of the rent, Carrie finds alternative ways of making a living: being a mistress, to wealthy men and, later, working her way toward fame as a stage actress. Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and later began his journalism career in Chicago.

Read about another book on the list.

Sister Carrie is one of Neil Pearson's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue