Can You Match These Novels to Their Settings in the Great Plains?
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the location can even feel like a character itself. This week’s quiz is about novels with significant settings in America’s Great Plains states. Although the works of Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder may first come to mind, the region also provides a locale for the five 21st-century books featured in this literary geography challenge.
To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. Links to the books will be listed at the end of the quiz if you’d like to do further reading. And don’t forget: A new quiz arrives every week on the Books page and previous quizzes can be found here.
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In the first part of “Gabriel’s Story,” David Anthony Durham’s 2001 novel, young Gabriel Lynch is not happy with his family’s new farming life in a prairie state and takes off for Texas. Which state did Gabriel leave?
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“O Beautiful,” Jung Yun’s 2021 novel about an inexperienced journalist researching a story on a local oil boom, is set in which state?
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Maud Nail, the protagonist of Margaret Verble’s 2015 novel “Maud’s Line,” lives on land parceled out by the U.S. government to Cherokee people in which state?
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Andrew Hilleman’s 2017 novel “World, Chase Me Down” is based on the true story of Pat Crowe, a kidnapper who was once the most wanted man in America in the early 20th century. Pat abducted the son of a local meatpacking tycoon in which state?
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“The Personal History of Rachel DuPree,” Ann Weisgarber’s 2010 novel, follows the lives of Black homesteaders on a Badlands ranch in which state?