New Orleans

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone
A Walk on the Wild Side: A Novel by Nelson Algren
several of Anne Rice's novels
Mosquitoes by Faulkner
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
considerable chunks of John Rechy's first novel City of Night

More of This World or Maybe Another P.S. by Barb Johnson

If you're looking for something more recent, this is a first-rate collection of stories.

Boulevard by Jim Grimsley
Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly
Zorro by Isabel Allende (only a small part but fun and memorable

Two of the best are 1 Dead in Attic, by Chris Rose and Where We Know: New Orleans As Home, edited by David Rutledge.

For some lesser-known (to non-New Orleanians) aspects of the city, try War of the Pews: A Personal Account of St. Augustine Church in New Orleans by Jerome G. LeDoux and The "Baby Dolls" : breaking the race and gender barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition, by Kim Marie Vaz.

Mystery fans should read Greg Herren and J. M. Redmann.

And no such list would be complete without Lyle Saxon's Gumbo Ya-Ya.

A little dated but, Dinner at Antoine's by Frances Parkinson Keyes.

The White League by Thomas Zigal

Decorations In A Ruined Cemetary by John Gregory Brown

Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps, upon which the film A Love Song for Bobby Long is based. I hesitate to recommend it, as the writing isn't quite up to my standards, but it does fit the theme.