These streets inspire stories, both true and imagined. What follows is a semi-comprehensive list of books that feature Detroit, or are authored by Detroit writers — fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, and books for young people. May it be a map for your readerly explorations.
Fiction:
Megan Abbott
- The Fever
- Dare Me
- The End of Everything
- Queenpin
Harriette Simpson Arnow
- The Dollmaker
- Hunter’s Horn
- The Weedkiller’s Daughter
Toby Barlow
- Sharp Teeth
- Babayaga
Charles Baxter
- A Relative Stranger
Matt Bell
- Scrapper
Lauren Beukes
- Broken Monsters
NoViolet Bulwayo
- We Need New Names
Pearl Cleage
- Just Wanna Testify
- What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
- I Wish I Had a Red Dress
- Babylon Sisters
- Til You Hear From Me
- Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do
- Seen it All and Done the Rest
- Brass Bed and Other Stories
Desiree Cooper
- Know the Mother
Joseph Coulson
- Of Song and Water
Bridgett M. Davis
- Into the Go-Slow
Stephen Dobyns
- The House on Alexandrine
Loren D. Estleman
- The Amos Walker books, including Motor City Blue, Retro, Angel Eyes, Sweet Women Lie, and Lady Yesterday
- The Detroit series, including Thunder City, Jitterbug, King of the Corner, and Motown
Jeffrey Eugenides
- Middlesex (Winner, Pulitzer Prize)
- The Marriage Plot
- The Virgin Suicides
Angela Flournoy
- The Turner House (Finalist, National Book Award)
Kelly Fordon
- Garden for the Blind
Donald Goines
- Dopefiend
- Whoreson
- Black Girl Lost
- Street Players
- Black Gangster
- White Man’s Justice, Black Man’s Grief
- Daddy Cool
- Cry Revenge
- Swamp Man
Judith Guest
- Ordinary People
- Second Heaven
- Killing Time in St. Cloud (with Rebecca Hill)
- Errands
- The Tarnished Eye
Arthur Hailey
- Wheels
Steve Hamilton
- Let it Burn
Lolita Hernandez
- Making Callaloo in Detroit
Alexander Irvine
- The Narrows
D.E. Johnson
- Detroit Breakdown
- The Detroit Electric Scheme
- Detroit Shuffle
- Motor City Shakedown
Scott Lasser
- Say Nice Things About Detroit
Allen Learst
- Dancing at the Gold Monkey
Brad Leithauser
- A Few Corrections
- The Art Student’s War
Elmore Leonard
- City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit
- Maximum Bob
- Swag Up in Honey’s Room
- Pagan Babies
- Split Images
- Unknown Man No. 89
Ross MacDonald
- Trouble Follows Me
Peter Markus
- Bob, or Man on Boat
- Good, Brother
- The Singing Fish
- We Make Mud
Susan Messer
- Grand River and Joy
Bill Morris
- Motor City Burning
Joyce Carol Oates
- With Shuddering Fall
- By the North Gate
- Upon the Sweeping Flood and Other Stories (includes “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction”)
- A Garden of Earthly Delights
- Expensive People
- them
- The Wheel of Love and Other Stories
- Wonderland
- Marriages and Infidelities
- Do With Me What You Will
- The Goddess and Other Women
- The Assassins
- The Hungry Ghost
- Seven Allusive Comedies
- Crossing the Border
- Night-Sides
Alice Randall
- The Wind Done Gone
- Pushkin and the Queen of Spades
- Rebel Yell
Upton Sinclair
- The Flivver-King: A Story of Ford-America
David Small
- Stitches
Jeff Vande Zande
- Detroit Muscle
Michael Zadoorian
- The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit
- Second Hand
Detroit Noir (anthology; eds. E.J. Olsen and John C. Hocking)
Nonfiction:
William M. Adler
- Land of Opportunity: One Family’s Quest for the American Dream in the Age of Crack
Eddie B. Allen
- Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines
Daniell Aubert, Lana Cavar & Natasha Chandani
- Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit
Dan Austin
- Forgotten Landmarks of Detroit
- Lost Detroit: Stories Behind the Motor City’s Majestic Ruins
Richard Bak & Neal Rubin
- Detroitland: A History of Movers, Shakers, Lost Souls and History Makers from Detroit’s Past
Nancy W. Barr
- Motor City Muse: Detroit Photographs, Then and Now
Beth Tompkins Bates
- The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford
Suzanne Bilek
- Great Female Artists of Detroit
Mark Binelli
- Detroit City is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis
Peter H. Blum
- Brewed in Detroit: Breweries and Beers Since 1830
James Boggs
- American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook
Grace Lee Boggs
- Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century (with James Boggs)
- Conversations in Maine: Exploring or Nations Future (with James Boggs, Freddy Paine and Lyman Paine)
- Living for Change: An Autobiography
Nathan Bomey
- Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back
Melba Joyce Boyd
- Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press
Kevin Boyle
- Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (Winner, Pulitzer Prize)
Amy Elliott Bragg
- Hidden History of Detroit
Brett Callwood
- MC5: Sonically Speaking The Stooges: Head On (forward by Alice Cooper)
David A. Carson
- Grit, Noise, and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock ‘n’ Roll
Anna Clark
- A Detroit Anthology (editor)
- Michigan Literary Luminaries: From Elmore Leonard to Robert Hayden
Pearl Cleage
- Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, and Love Affairs
- Deals With the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot; Mad at Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth
Paul Clemons
- Made in Detroit
Ken Coleman
- Forever Young: The Coleman Reader
Maria O. Collum, Barbara E. Krueger & Dorothy Kostuch
- Detroit’s Historic Places of Worship
Toi Derricotte
- The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey
Bob Dombrowski
- 38 Years: A Detroit Firefighter’s Story
Brian Lee Dunnigan
- Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838
Aaron Foley
- How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass
Bradford Frost
- Reveal Your Detroit: An Intimate Look at a Great American City
John G. Fuller
- We Almost Lost Detroit
John Gallagher
- Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City
- Revolution Detroit: Strategies of Urban Reinvention
- Yamasaki in Detroit
George Galster
- Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in the Motor City
Peter Gavrilovich & Bill McGraw
- The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City
Cheri Y. Gay
- Detroit: Then & Now
Ernie Goodman
- The Color of Law
Amy Haimerl
- Detroit Hustle: A Memoir of Love, Life, and Home
Laurie Lanzen Harris with Paul Ganson
- The Detroit Symphony Orchestra: Grace, Grit, and Glory
Robert Hayden
- Collected Prose (ed. Frederick Glaysher)
Charles K. Hyde
- Images From the Arsenal of Democracy
- Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II
Oneita Jackson
- Nappy-Headed Negro Syndrome
Charlie LeDuff
- Detroit: An American Autopsy
Andy Linn, Emily Linn & Rob Linn
- Belle Isle to 8 Mile: An Insider’s Guide to Detroit
Bill Loomis
- Detroit Food: Coney Dogs to Farmers Markets
Steve Luxenberg
- Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret
Paul Kersey
- Escape from Detroit: The Collapse of the Black Metropolis
David Maraniss
- Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story
Scott Martelle
- Detroit: A Biography
Tracie McMillan
- The American Way of Eating
Steve Miller
- Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in America’s Loudest City
Jayne Morris-Crowther
- The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwoman in the 1920s
Andrew Moore & Phillip Levine
- Detroit Disassembled
Julia R. Myers
- Energy: Charles McGee at Eight-Five
Charles Novacek
- Border Crossings: Coming of Age in the Czech Resistance
Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian
- Canvas Detroit
Gerald Posner
- Motown: Music, Money, Sex & Power
J. Gordan Rodwan
- Detroit Is (w/ John G. Rodwan, Jr.)
John G. Rodwan, Jr.
- Fighter & Writers
- Holidays and Other Disasters
- Detroit Is (w/ J. Gordan Rodwan)
Tony Rettman & Tesco Vee
- Why Be Something You’re Not: Detroit Hardcore 1979-1985
Chris Rhomberg
- The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor
Wilbur Rich
- Coleman Young & Detroit Politics: From Social Activist to Power Broker
Jenny Risher
- Heart Soul Detroit: Conversations on the Motor City
Mitch Ryder
- Devils and Blue Dresses
Shaka Senghor
- Writing My Wrongs
- Live in Peace
Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren
- American City: Detroit Architecture 1845-2005
Dan Sicko
- Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk
Suzanne E. Smith
- Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit
John Sobczak
- A Motor City Year
Thomas J. Sugrue
- The Algiers Motel Incident (with John Hersey)
- The Origins of an Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
Marvin Surkin & Dan Georgakas
- Detroit: I Do Mind Dying
Julie Manning Thomas
- Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit
Barrett Watten
- The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography
Doug Wilson
- The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych
Malcolm X
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X (with Alex Haley)
Helen Zia
- Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People My Country Versus Me (with Wen Ho Lee)
Poetry:
Terry Blackhawk
- The Dropped Hand
- The Light Between
D. Blair
- Moonwalking
Pearl Cleage
- Blues for an Alabama Sky
- Flyin’ West
- A Song for Cornetta
- Bourbon at the Border
Jim Daniels
- In Line for the Exterminator
Toi Derricotte
- Captivity
- Natural Birth
- Tender Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of African-American Poetry (ed.)
Tarfia Faizullah
- Seam
Vievee Francis
- Blue-Tail Fly
- Horse in the Dark
- Forest Primeval
Bill Harris
- Booker T and Them
francine j. harris
- allegiance
Robert Hayden
- Selected Poems
- Words in the Mourning Time
- Angle of Ascent: New and Selected Poems
- American Journal
- Collected Poems (ed. Frederick Glaysher)
Kim D. Hunter
- On the Edge of the Time Zone
Murray Jackson
- Bobweaving Detroit
Phillip Levine
- News of the World
- Breath
- The Mercy
- The Simple Truth
- What Work Is
- A Walk with Tom Jefferson
- They Feed They Lion
- Not This Pig
Naomi Long Madgett
- Connected Islands: New and Selected Poems
- Pilgrim Journey
Ken Meisel
- Beautiful Rust
- Scrap Metal
- Mantra Poems
Ken Mikolowski
- Big Enigmas
- Little Mysteries
- This That
Joyce Carol Oates
- Women In Love and Other Poems
- Anonymous
- Sins & Other Poems
- Love and Its Derangements
- Angel Fire
- The Fabulous Beasts
Matthew Olzmann
- Mezzanines
Jamaal May
- Hum
Marge Piercy
- Made in Detroit
- The Crooked Inheritance
- To Be of Use
- Stone, Paper, Knife
- Hard-Loving
Dudley Randall (founder of Broadside Press)
- Poem Counterpoem (with Margaret Danner)
- Cities Burning
- After the Killing
- A Litany of Friends: New and Selected Poems
- Roses and Revolutions (introduction by Melba Joyce Boyd)
Chris Tysh
- Cleavage
- Coat of Arms
- Continuity Girl
- The Flip Side
- In the Name Molloy
Plays:
Ron Allen
- Aboriginal Treatment Center
- Dreaming the Reality Room
- Yellow Eye Mouth
- Graffitti Body Shop
- The Heidelberg Project: Squatting in the Circle of the Elder Mind
- The Hieroglyph of the Cockatoo
- Last Church of the Twentieth Century
- My Eyes Are in the Cage in My Head
- Relative Energy
- Sack Museum
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead
- Twenty Plays in Twenty Minutes
- Swallow the Sun
- WHAM!
Lisa D’Amour
- Detroit: A Play
Ron Milner
- Who’s Got His Own
- The Monster
- The Warning—A Theme for Linda M(ego) and the Green Ball of Freedom
- What the Wine Sellers Buy
- These Three Season’s Reasons
- Checkmates
- Don’t Get God Started
- Defending the Light;
- Urban Transition: Loose Blossoms
Dominique Morisseau
- Detroit ’67
Jonathan Reynolds
- Yanks 3, Detroit 0: Top of the Seventh
Chris Tysh
- Car Men: A Play in D Night Scales
Books for Young People:
Jean Alicia Elster
- The Colored Card Who’s Jim Hines?
those Joyce Carol Oates books don’t all concern Detroit, do they? That doesn’t seem possible. She’s not from Michigan, either. Confusing.
Actually, yes! Oates moved to Detroit in 1962 and taught at the University of Detroit (now University of Detroit-Mercy). In 1968, a pivotal year for the city, she moved five minutes across the river to Windsor, Ontario, and taught at the University of Windsor. Her novel “them,” which is especially embedded in Detroit, won the 1970 National Book Award.
Very nice list. However, the author of Dancing at the Gold Monkey is Allen Learst.
What about Susan Messer’s Grand River and Joy? (2010)
Oh Yes, and Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit by Suzanne Smith (non-fiction)
Thanks, Louise: Adding “Grand River and Joy” now! And you’ll see that “Dancing in the Street” is already listed in our nonfiction suggestion. Appreciate the feedback and let us know if you think of others!
Alexander Irvine “The Narrows”. WWII, Henry Ford, golem, it’s got everything. Now, he’s from Ypsi but the book is set in Detroit. I think it’s a fantastic book. It talks of the war effort in Detroit in WWII and seamlessly incorporates fantasy elements, such as golem (Jewish monster-ish creatures).
Toby Barlow
Thanks for the list; there are quite a few that I am unfamiliar with, but will go on my list of books to check out. William M. Adler’s remarkable account of the two Motown Chambers brothers, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY certainly rates inclusion and while Charles Baxter hasn’t written much about Motown, his “The Disappeared” which gets my vote for the best short story written with a Detroit locale and which appears in THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, 1991, is collected in his A RELATIVE STRANGER.
Thank you for the suggestions! Updates have been made … and of course, we always welcome more suggestions.
How about Theo Czuk’s THE BLACK BOTTOM about Detroit in the roaring ’20s? Jazz, prohibition, union wars, gang wars (the Purple Gang!), Ford’s Model T, and on and on are explored in this psychological thriller.
I am a novelist, poet, jazz pianist and a Detroit native. My most recent work is about Detroit during prohibition. 1927, jazz, speakeasies, union wars, gang wars and on and on are presented in this work which can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=theo+czuk&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
I would like to be considered for inclusion in the above list.
Thank you,
Theo Czuk
More to add:
Fiction: Stephen Mack Jones’s August Snow and Lives Laid Away
Nonfiction: John Hartigan, Racial Situations