5 Books Set In Twin Cities For Armchair Travel Reading List

It’s summer and with everyone off on some kind of adventure, we’re taking to the page to discover destinations in our own backyard.

Continuing our look at books set in Midwestern cities (catch up on our rundown for Milwaukee here), this armchair traveler is headed to Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The Twin Cities are frequently ranked among the most literate cities, with their bounty of indie bookstores, notable publishers and the Loft Literary Center, the largest nonprofit literary center in the country.

Sure, it’s a great place to be a reader and writer — but what’s it like for fictional characters? Dark secrets, abusive families and identity pains loom large in these books about Minneapolis-St. Paul:

“Vestments” by John Reimringer

James Dressler is a priest on a leave of absence after a moment of weakness with an old flame. He heads back to his childhood home in St. Paul where he works through his relationship with his drunk and violent father, all the while grappling with his faith and figuring out his path forward.

“Boarded Windows” by Dylan Hicks

Wade Salem is drug-dealing, yarn-spinning, roving musician, and a de facto father figure who wanders back into the unnamed narrator’s life on the cusp of his 21st birthday. The book follows the narrator as he tries to make sense of his childhood, his origins and his identity in flashbacks to Minneapolis in the 1970s and 1990s.

“Four Souls” by Louise Erdrich

Fleur Pillager walks from her Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota to Minneapolis-St. Paul to avenge the theft of her land. But revenge turns out to be more complicated than Pillager planned.

“War for the Oaks” by Emma Bull

Eddi McCandry has just left her band and her bandmate boyfriend when she finds herself pursued by a man who is at times a talking dog at night in Minneapolis. That meeting leads McCandry into an invisible battle between warring faeries as she struggles to put together a new band.

“Until They Bring the Streetcars Back” by Stanley Gordon West

Cal Gant is a popular high school student in St. Paul who attempts to save an abused girl named Gretchen. Gant has little to gain from helping Gretchen, but his concern for her shatters his life and puts him in conflict with her ruthless father.