Challenges from Exploding Steamboats discussion

This thread is for discussion of books set in Illinois.

Original list: The Jungle

Alternate suggestions:
* Native Son

I just finished reading Sin in the Second City which is about prostituion in Chicago in the early 1900s. I thought it was quite good.

I read The Life List by Lori Nelson Spielman. I didn't hate it, so apparently I was really in the mood for a predictable, sappy romance.

Button-Holed

Never a City so Real

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. Some of the story is set in California, Arizona and Indiana, even New York gets a couple of mentions, but in passing. However, the vast majority of the book is set in Illinois. Oh, there is also an extremely tiny bit in New Orleans and just a bit more in Peru.