The Best Urban Fiction Novels Where The City Is The Main Character
Alexa, play "Empire State of Mind"
The official teaser of the The Devil Wears Prada 2 is here, and by May this year, we will be back again to the urban fiction flic where our favourite characters from Runway magazine make their way through impossible deadlines and the bustling streets of New York City.
Which brings me to my favourite genre in books: the city fiction. Also known as urban fiction, these are stories of people trying to make ends meet, grappling with festering ambition and the struggle to make ends meet in metro cities that offer to be a safe haven for personal growth and turn out to be anything but. Novels that make concrete jungles and commercial centres into their own characters, alive with their own rules, unspoken customs and rigid hierarchies.
The characters navigating these settings could be a countryside hustler grifting into the elite circles of South Delhi, a finance bro crashing out in New York (which, somehow, is always where these stories are set), or someone in the darker underbellies of Bombay, trying to make it to the next day amidst gang wars, police raids and drug addiction in the chawls of the city. But no matter what they lose (even themselves in the process), they just don't give up. Spirit of Mumbai or something like that, am I right?
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Either way, these stories make for highly engaging reads, serving both as social commentaries with their discourse on class, caste, gender and race, and sharp notes on what it is like living in an urban utopia. Read on for our best picks in the lot.
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Written in a unique second-person point of view, this fever dream of a novel story follows Jamie Conway, a young fact checker at a magazine who drifts through the 1980s Manhattan nightlife while his life falls apart. His wife has left him, his mother is dying back home, his career is failing; while he avoids reality by chasing cocaine, clubs, and strangers. New York City becomes its own character, plunging him further down into the void, under the promise that a happening, fast-paced life is a successful one.
Workhorse by Caroline Palmer
Carolin Palmer’s debut novel, released last year, is like a mix of The Devil Wears Prada, Yellowface and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Our main character is a rather unlikeable twenty-something young woman, Clo, trying to build a stable life in the final years of the glossy magazine era. She is a “workhorse”, a person who has to work her way into the fashion world unlike the “showhorse” Davis Lawrence, the daughter of a famous yesteryear actress whose surname alone can open almost every door there is. The story follows her thoughts as she claws her way into the elite societies of the city and the unbelievable expectations of the fashion world.
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Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
Jeet Thayil’s novel unfolds in Bombay’s opium dens over the course of several decades. The story is centered around Rashid’s Opium House, where addicts gather to smoke, talk, and drift. Through their stories, the book traces the lives of Dimple, a trans woman who rises within the drug world, Rashid the caretaker, and other regulars whose pasts surface in fragments. As heroin replaces opium as the new drug, the characters reach new lengths to solidify their power or make it out alive. Bombay changes alongside the drugs, growing harsher and more divided with time.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
What happens when the Devil walks in to test a city ruled by debauchery and corruption? In this satire by Mikhail Bulgakov, Satan appears in 1930s Stalinist Moscow in the form of a Professor named Woland, testing the people of the city and killing those whose actions are irredeemable. In his travels, he comes across Margarita, a young woman whose lover, a writer referred to as the Master, has been confined after his novel about Pontius Pilate is rejected. To save her lover, Margarita makes a pact with the Devil.
Ulysses by James Joyce
Over the course of a day in Dublin, the novel follows Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising canvasser, Stephen Dedalus, a young teacher and writer who argues about art, faith, and identity. The novel, written in that typical stream-of-consciousness style, recreates the city of Dublin with such detail that Joyce even claimed that if “suddenly disappeared from the Earth, it could be reconstructed from my book”.
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Coin by Yasmin Zaher
Coin follows an cleanliness-obsessed Palestinian heiress who works as a private-school teacher in New York City. Her job places her among wealthy families whose lives feel both close and unreachable, and she would do anything to be a part of that circle. As she struggles with her identity, the trauma of her homeland, and the chaos of her life in America, her obsession with cleanliness slowly devolves into psychosis, crumbling down her routines and sense of self into hours-long cleaning rituals to purge the "filth" of what she sees surrounding her in the city.
The Windfall by Diksha Basu
In Delhi, Mr. and Mrs. Jha move from a modest neighborhood to an upscale colony after sudden wealth. Determined to fit in, Mrs. Jha studies the habits of their new neighbors, from charity events to home decor, and pushes her husband to perform success. Their son Rupak, who lives in the United States, struggles with his own career and relationship trying not to give in to the pressure from expectations back home. Over time, the strain of pretending and comparison takes a toll on the family. The city’s class codes drive the comedy and conflict, shaping how love and ambition end up at a crossroads when public image and money is involved.
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
This Urban fic classic follows Sherman McCoy, a delusional bond trader in New York who sees himself as a master of the universe. One night, while driving in the Bronx with his mistress, he takes a wrong turn. A confrontation leads to a hit and run that injures a young Black man. The case becomes a media storm. A district attorney sees political gain, a reporter hunts a career saving story, and a preacher turns the incident into a public cause. Amidst all of this, Sherman’s marriage, job, and status collapse while each institution uses the event for its own ends.