Queens Born and Raised: 6 Must-Reads by Local Authors
This fall, let the largest borough in New York City be the star of your bookshelf. Not only is Queens the setting for each of these books, they’re also written by Queens-born or raised authors. These tomes unfold on our own blocks, stoops, and subways, capturing the borough’s mix of languages, loyalties, and everyday hustle. This season is the perfect time to grab a cup of pumpkin-spiced coffee (or another beverage of choice), and cozy up with one of these reads.
Re Jane by Patricia Park
Women’s Fiction
Re Jane is a witty, big-hearted story about love, resilience, and choosing a life that’s yours—not just one shaped by obligation. Crossing Queens, Brooklyn, and Seoul, it’s a fresh contemporary reimagining of Jane Eyre. Jane Re, a half-Korean, half-American orphan from Flushing, works as a nanny for Brooklyn professors Beth Mazer and Ed Farley. She’s begins a complicated relationship with Ed—until a family death sends her to Seoul. There, reconnecting with relatives and modern Korea, she rethinks her relationship with him and begins to focus on what she truly wants in life. Returning to Queens, Jane strives to balance two cultures and claim her own identity.
Patricia Park is an author and a tenured professor of creative writing at American University. She is from Flushing, Queens.
Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart
Adult Memoir
Gary Shteyngart’s memoir Little Failure is a candid, funny, and tender portrait of an immigrant childhood that lands squarely in Queens—especially Kew Gardens and Little Neck. Born Igor in Leningrad (once a part of the Soviet Union), he arrives in America newly named Gary. With self-deprecating humor and sharp insight, he revisits early ambitions (including a childhood novel he wrote at just five-years-old), parental expectations for a career on Wall Street, and the ache for belonging. The result is a vibrant story of family that feels both intimate and expansive, rooted in the borough that helped shape his voice.
Gary Shteyngart is an author of six novels. His family immigrated from Leningrad to Little Neck, Queens in 1979 when he was seven years old.
The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres
Adult Fiction
Set in 1990s Queens, this novel follows best friends Brisma and Kelly who have opposite temperaments. Brisma is thoughtful and tender, Kelly is daring and mercurial. Their bond strains after Brisma starts seeing Brian, a rising baseball standout. Years later, they reconnect just as an accusation of sexual assault surfaces, pushing both women to reevaluate their past, their neighborhood loyalties, and what it means to stand with survivors. Told across past and present, the novel explores friendship, community pressures, and how harm can lurk in familiar places.
Christine Kandic Torres is a proud graduate of New York City public education, which includes schools like the City University of New York, Brooklyn College. She was raised in Woodside and Elmhurst, Queens.
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Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Adult Fiction
Min Jin Lee’s debut follows Casey Han, a Princeton graduate caught between the elite world she’s tasted and the Queens dry-cleaning shop where her Korean immigrant parents work. With champagne tastes and a thin wallet, she navigates Manhattan’s social ladder while wrestling with class, culture, and belonging. The novel paints a vivid picture of privilege in New York and begs the question: What does it take to keep your identity intact as your world keeps shifting?
Min Jin Lee is an accomplished writer and will serve as the New York State Author Laureate from September 2025 through 2027. She grew up in Elmhurst, Queens.
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades
Women’s Fiction
Brown Girls follows a chorus of young women of color—Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique, and others—as they grow up between immigrant households and the pull of New York’s possibilities. They share music, crushes, and late-night adventures before their paths diverge: some stay rooted in Queens, others chase new worlds. In a collective voice, the novel explores how ambition and loyalty, freedom and duty, test their bonds as they keep finding their way back to each other and to Queens.
Daphne Palasi Andreades successfully completed CUNY Baruch College and Columbia University’s MFA Fiction programs and grew up in Ozone Park, Queens.
Dogfight, A Love Story by Matt Burgess
Literary Fiction
This is a fast, funny, and tense Queens tale about one disastrous weekend in the life of Alfredo Batista. With his brother Tariq coming home from prison, rumors that Alfredo snitched begin swirling, and his now-pregnant girlfriend Isabel is in the middle. He’s also tasked with stealing a pit bull for a homecoming dogfight. As plans unravel across Jackson Heights, Burgess captures the borough’s streets and razor-sharp banter, turning a chaos-filled caper into a gritty, big-hearted story about loyalty and survival.
Matt Burgess has written for film and television and published short fiction and essays in a variety of magazines. He is originally from Jackson Heights, Queens.
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