Eight Essential Books Set in the Middle of Nowhere

Every tale ever told depends in some way on isolation. No matter whether a novel is set in a hectic city or a pastoral village or a single claustrophobic room, that book’s author has to build a narrative container for its characters so we readers understand where our focus should be: We pay attention to these people, this conflict, and not all that other potentially interesting stuff out there. After all, one book can’t fit every person and place in the world. The solar system. The universe. Beyond! No, writers must limit themselves, choose what to include and what to leave out, in order to tell their stories.

Of course, that container does in the split narrative of , or a family line, as does in her multigenerational epic . Writers sometimes build a physical structure around their characters: a mansion in , a train in , a reform school, a whaling ship, an asylum, a gulag. Or writers choose the limits of geography.