A professor of creative writing set out to map 1,001 novels set in the United States. In her project, here is what the Chicago region looks like:

I do not know enough literature to know how well this map might reflect the totality of fiction written about and/or set in Chicago. However, the map above has relatively little from the suburbs. Here are the suburban works listed (a few others have markers in the suburbs but the descriptions say they are set in Chicago):

-Joliet – A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich (2008)

-Salt County, Illinois – Water Marked (2000) [this is the one with a marker in northeast DuPage County on the map above]

-Prairie Park, Illinois – Neon Green (2016) [this is the one with a marker in northwest Indiana]

-Lake Forest – Ordinary People (1976)

No interest in the latest from Jonathan Franzen?

More broadly, is there any consensus on the best suburban novel of the last few decades? Academic treatments of the literature set in suburbs often cite novels like The Crack in the Picture Window or Revolutionary Road from the early years of postwar suburbia.