Bent Northrop Memorial Library

A series of compelling free-verse monologues in which former citizens of a mythical Midwestern town speak, from the grave, of the thwarted hopes and dreams of their lives. Originally published in book form in 1915, this is a landmark of 20th-century American literature.

Ex-military investigator Jack Reacher is called in by James Barr, the man accused of a lethal sniper attack on a heartland city that leaves five people dead, and teams up with a young defense attorney to find an unseen enemy who is manipulating events behind the scenes. Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You...

Ellen Grier and her family move in with her in-laws to help take care of them, and she begins to feel like she is losing her identity.

"It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless -- unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social...

In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to...

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral comes a funny, chilling novel set in a small town in the 1940s Midwest, featuring a young woman whose moral goodness may destroy her.

When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process. With...

"An enchanting and timeless all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart. Small town cinema owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his Pontiac flies off a bridge into the icy depths of Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening into his new life, Virgil begins...

"Just hours after his wife and her entire family perish in the Christmas Eve tsunami in Brisbane, American expat and former police officer Frank Mercy goes out to join his volunteer rescue unit and pulls a little boy from a submerged car, saving the child's life with only seconds to spare. In that moment, Frank's own life is transformed. Not quite knowing why, Frank sidesteps the law, when, instead of turning Ian over to the Red Cross, he takes the...

The tensions beneath the surface of Claire and Don Lowry's seemingly contented marriage explode in the bedrooms and backyards of a small town over the course of a long, hot summer, as they discover that married life is not what they had predicted.

Seventeen-year-old Steven "Stiggy" Gabel tries to cope with his father's suicide, his mother's depression, and his girlfriend's departure by taking off down the Great River Road from Minnesota to Louisiana.