The best works of fiction set in the City of Brotherly Love

More than 12,000 Philadelphia residents died when the Spanish Flu began global deaths in 1918. Although the virus had already wreaked havoc in New England, Philadelphia officials went ahead with plans for a scheduled parade designed to raise public funding for the Great War across the ocean. An estimated 200,000 people watched and cheered as soldiers, veterans, and workers involved in the war effort marched down Broad Street on Sept. 28, 1918. An article about the spectacle published that afternoon in The Evening Bulletin, began “This is a great day in Philadelphia.” 

But another article in the same edition noted that a police officer had died from the flu and more than 100 people had recently tested positive for the virus. The parade was what we now would call a “super spreader event.” Within weeks, “the grippe,” as many called the disease had killed thousands and shut down the city. 

Author Susan Meissner’s As Bright As Heaven follows the Bright family – mother, father, and three daughters – during the influenza and beyond. The mother and three daughters alternately describe the action, and I found myself eager to hear more of their individual stories. Imagining the characters in the book’s various Philadelphia settings enriched the read.

While this novel is set in Philadelphia, the city doesn’t get the most flattering write-up. Main character Alix, a relative newbie to the city, misses her life in Manhattan, bemoaning Philadelphia’s slower pace. Philly is also where the racially-tinged incident that ignites the book’s action occurs: When a stranger sees Alex’s white daughter in the care of the child’s Black babysitter, she tells grocery store security she believes a kidnapping has occurred.  

Why am I recommending a book that paints Philadelphia as boring and racist? Because this is a story that could be set in any city or town. Alix’s complaints about her new home reflect more poorly on her than on the city. Systemic racism and the growth of the Karen Culture is uniquely American. 

This book hooked me on page one and didn’t let go. It’s an easy and engaging read, and, like real life, it’s more nuanced than black and white. 

I can’t even tell you how many times in many years working for newspapers that I rushed out after hearing a body had been found in an empty house or neglected alley. In almost every case, I would arrive to have police officers tell me, “No story here. No homicide. Just another overdose.” The newspaper didn’t tally overdose deaths as it did murders, even if many fatalities are linked to heroin that has been mixed with fentanyl without the users’ knowledge. It’s very rare for those who sell the killer substance to face homicide charges. 

The city is basically another character in this book. While the opioid epidemic had touched communities across the country, Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood is widely acknowledged as a disaster zone. A 2018 New York Times article called Kensington is the largest open-air narcotics market on the east coast. 

The plot centers on Philadelphia police officer Mickey and her search for Kacey, her sister, who has substance abuse disorder and often uses in Kensington. Mickey fears her sister may have been a victim of a murderer who is notching up bodies in the neighborhood. 

Long Bright River is much more than a police procedural. It’s a thriller that keeps you guessing. It’s the story of a family whose lives have been forever changed by the opioid epidemic.  It’s a look at what was once a blue-collar neighborhood of rowhouses filled with families that is today a neglected, dangerous place with abandoned buildings, a consistent drug presence, and house-proud residents who are caught in the middle.  

I didn’t know this book was considered “young adult” until my teenage niece pointed out that she’d been assigned the book in school. Yes, protagonist Emoni is a senior in high school, but she’s an old soul. She has to be, given the challenges she faces as a teen mother and a mixed-race woman. Emoni is strong and inspiring and determined, but her greatest gift is cooking. When Emoni makes a meal, her amazingness gets into the food and brings joy to its eaters. I love magical realism and this reminded me of Like Water for Chocolate, another novel in which she who prepares a meal infuses it with emotion. 

Emoni struggles, but she is surrounded by love and she gives it in return to the grandmother who raised her and the daughter she conceived as a high school freshman. Emoni has dreams of cooking school but she’s also a realist. How could she do that when Babygirl needs her? (The toddler Emma is almost always called Babygirl by Emoni and her grandmother, much to the disdain of the child's paternal grandmother.)  

Emoni is inspiring. When her boss at a fast food restaurant is unfair, she regroups and stands up stronger. When the teacher in the school cooking program scolds her for not following recipes, she reflects on why that upsets him. Her relationships – with her ex, her grandmother, her friends, and a possible future beau – are real and relatable. It’s so unlike some novels centered on teens featuring superficial, one-line zingers. 

I was strangely proud that the author chose to set this book in Philadelphia. Yes, it’s fiction, but I like to think there are Emonis in our schools who are on paths to succeed.

This book couldn’t be set anywhere else. In 1985, a stand-off between city authorities and members of the MOVE organization ended when a state police helicopter dropped two bombs on MOVE’s West Philadelphia headquarters. Eleven people died, including five children, and more than 60 homes were destroyed. Two residents of the house – a 13-year-old boy and an adult woman – survived the conflagration. 

MOVE members believed in racial justice, animal rights, and a back-to-nature lifestyle. The group frequently clashed with neighbors and city leaders. On the day of the bombing, police had gone to the MOVE home to evict those living there. 

As a newspaper reporter, I twice interviewed two police officers on the scene who helped young Birdie Africa as he fled the burning home. The first words Birdie said to the officers were, “Don’t shoot me.” Two decades after the bombing, the police officers were still haunted by it. “I’ll probably find peace when I pass,” one told me. 

John Edgar Wideman won the Pen/Faulkner Award for this often-dark work. Written in 1990, the story remains relevant today. While attending a memorial service for the MOVE victims, the fictional main character thinks of what he wanted to say to mourners: “… if they offed them people on Osage yesterday just might be you today. Or tomorrow. .. because that day in May the Man wasn’t playing. Huh uh. Taking no names. No prisoners … And here you are again, making no connections, taking out no insurance.”