Rick Moody’s acclaimed novel, The Ice Storm, was written in 1994. It explores the moral and emotional collapse of two affluent, upper-middle-class families in New Canaan, Connecticut, during the turbulent Thanksgiving weekend of 1973. Set against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal, shifting political climates, and the onset of the sexual revolution, the narrative follows […]
Set during the brutal “starving time” in 1610, Lauren Groff’s novel follows an unnamed, resourceful teenage servant girl who escapes the disease-ridden Jamestown colony. Fleeing into the unforgiving winter wilderness, she must rely entirely on her wits to survive, navigate her harsh new environment, and find inner freedom. The narrative opens with the protagonist slipping
Set during the American Revolution, My Brother Sam is Dead is a historical fiction novel following the Meeker family in Redding, Connecticut. Their loyalist household fractures when the eldest son, Sam, joins the Patriot army. The tragic, anti-war narrative illustrates how ideological conflict destroys families. The story is narrated by fourteen-year-old Tim Meeker, who idolizes
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Technically, Mark Twain’s 1889 satirical novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is only set in New England for the opening and ending sequences. The rest is takes place in in England, in the year 528. The story follows Hank Morgan, an ingenious 19th-century mechanic from Hartford, who sustains a head injury and awakens
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An Act of Oblivion, written in 2022 by Robert Harris, is a historical thriller set during the turbulent years following the English Civil War and the execution of King Charles I. The novel explores themes of justice, revenge, loyalty, and survival through the intertwined lives of men hunted across continents after one of the most
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Set in 1955 in Connecticut, Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road is a devastating portrayal of 1950s suburban conformity, unfulfilled potential, and the slow, agonizing collapse of a marriage. The story centers on Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, attractive couple living at 115 Revolutionary Road in a suburban enclave called Revolutionary Hill Estates. Unlike their neighbors,
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