Workshop graduate John McNally recently published "After the Workshop," a novel that tells the story of a Workshop graduate who never actually made it out of Iowa City. My column on the book concludes with, "But the author denies that he has written a "roman à clef" in which tries to disguise fact as fiction. Instead, McNally said his characters are based more on types of writers that people may know than on composites of the real writers he's been in contact with. // That answer not only seems a little disingenuous, it's begging to be challenged. Luckily, Iowa City residents can share their own ideas about where fact and fiction intersect in "After the Workshop" when McNally reads in Prairie Lights at 7 p.m. Tuesday."
(http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100306/OPINION03/3060302)
McNally's novel does expand the list of fiction set in Iowa City. I'd be interested to hear of any other worthwhile novels or stories about the Iowa City area that should be added to the list below ...
* “The Simple Truth” (1955): Elizabeth Hardwick fictionalizes a 1950 murder trial in which a UI fraternity member was accused of killing his sorority girlfriend.
* “Letting Go” (1962): A very young Philip Roth opens his novel by describing the bleak existence of UI graduate students in a style that demonstrates just how much he disliked his time here.
* “The Water Method Man” (1972): Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate John Irving tells the story of a UI graduate student undergoing a unique treatment for his abnormally narrow urinary tract.
* “Now Playing at Canterbury” (1976): Former workshop professor Vance Bourjaily uses State University, State City — located along the State River — as the setting for a novel centered around the opening of a new auditorium (think Hancher) in 1972.
* “Easter Parade” (1976): Former workshop professor Richard Yates tells the story of two sisters, Emily and Sarah Grimes, one of whom begins a relationship with a poet and comes to Iowa City during his teaching gig at the Workshop.
* “Shoeless Joe” (1982) and “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” (1986): Canada native and workshop graduate W.P. Kinsella combines J.D. Salinger, baseball and corporate farming. When Kinsell’s “Shoeless Joe” was adapted into the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” the setting moved from Iowa City to a farm near Dyersville.
* “Heroes” (1984): David Shields offers what is believed to be the only UI basketball novel.
* “A Shroud for Aquarius” (1985): Max Allan Collins uses his hometown, Muscatine, and Iowa City as the main locations for a mystery novel.
* “Crossing to Safety” (1987): Former workshop professor Wallace Stegner sets the novel at the University of Wisconsin, but the narrator is said to be Stegner himself and another major character, Sid Lang, is said to be modeled on the late Wilbur Schramm, professor of English, first director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
* “Jasmine” (1989): India native and workshop graduate Bharati Mukherjee describes a young widow from India who escapes to Iowa during the farm crisis.
* “Jesus’ Son” (1992): Workshop graduate Denis Johnson’s first collection of short fiction, consists of 11 brief, interconnected stories narrated by an unnamed man who is addicted to drugs and alcohol.
* “Built in a Day” (2003): Workshop grad Steven Rineheart originally wanted to set this Iowa City novel in New Paltz, N.Y., but he figured that would give his anti-hero too much access to a major metropolitan area.
* “Athens, America” (2005): Former Iowa City Councilor Larry Baker provides a must-read for anyone interested in Iowa City politics.
* “Irreplaceable” (2009): Workshop graduate Stephen Lovely writes a heart transplant novel set in thinly fictionalized Athens, Iowa.
* “After the Workshop” (2010): Workshop graduate John McNally describes what life is like for Workshop graduates who never leave Iowa City.