Ask a Book Question: The 63rd in a Series (Chicago Stories)

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June 25, 2008 | 11 books mentioned 12 3 min read

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Rob writes in with this question:

I’m a seventeen year old who is going to be spending five weeks this summer in Chicago (to be specific – Evanston, since I’ll be part of Northwestern’s summer high school music institute). I’m a life-long New Jerseyan, and have never been in the city of broad shoulders for longer than three days.

So, since I like reading books about the place I’m visiting, I was wondering if you could recommend anything that captured the essence of Chicago – I’m looking for works that encapsulate Chicago in the same way Kavalier & Clay encapsulates New York.

I was thinking about The Lazarus Project and Carl Sandburg’s work. Do you have any other ideas?

coverChicago has inspired some of America’s greatest fiction and continues to be a fruitful setting for contemporary writers. I’ve just completed The Lazarus Project (review hopefully forthcoming), and its twinned stories – set in Chicago 1908 and present day Eastern Europe – mine Chicago’s multicultural past and ignominious history. The book, based on the true story of the mysterious death of immigrant Lazarus Averbuch reminded me a lot of The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson’s non-fiction account of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the serial killer who lurked in its shadows (my review here). Both Devil and Lazarus vividly evoke the chaos of Chicago, a turn of the century boomtown of slaughterhouses, nascent industry, and the first “skyscrapers” that was quickly aligning itself as the country’s center after only decades earlier being its frontier.

An interest in this era in Chicago will inevitably lead one to Upton Sinclair, whose 1906 novel The Jungle is a muckraking, contemporary account of the slaughterhouse workers who drove Chicago’s economic engine. The novel is a landmark among American social novels.

coverJumping forward in time, Chicago produced one of America’s greatest novelists, Saul Bellow, who haunted the hauls of Northwestern in the 1930s. Garth writes that “the greatest Chicago novel ever is The Adventures of Augie March, which is highly recommended for someone who liked Kavalier & Clay.” This contention is hard to dispute.

covercoverPatrick points us to another, more contemporary literary lodestar for Chicago: “The poet laureate of Chicago is Stuart Dybek (I mean, I don’t think he actually is, I just think he should be). The Coast of Chicago and I Sailed With Magellan are both absolute must reads. They both entirely take place in Chicago (mostly the South Side, but not exclusively). He’s one of my favorite authors, and somebody who should have a much larger audience.”

Patrick also throws a more recent selection into the mix: “Also, it’s not like a totally Chicago Chicago book, but I think [Joshua Ferris’s] Then We Came to the End is about Chicago in a really interesting way, as it encapsulates life in the Loop, full of business people commuting from all the suburbs, folks who live in Lincoln Park, people who drive up from the South Side. Plus it’s really fun.”

To these I would also add Adam Langer’s well received duo of books set in West Rogers Park, a neighborhood at the northern edge of the city not far from where I used to live: Crossing California and The Washington Story. Finally, anyone interested in Chicago fiction should consider Chris Ware’s landmark graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. It’s another twinned story, with threads taking place in the near present and during 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, for so many the moment of Chicago’s emergence. Ware’s pathos is haunting and his spare, eccentric drawings are mesmerizing. Along with Devil in the White City, it is a favorite of contemporary Chicagoans.

We’ve undoubtedly skipped over much worthy Chicago literature, so please enlighten us with further suggestions in the comments. Rob, thanks for a great question!

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.

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Ask a Book Question: The 67th in a Series (The Concierge)

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October 13, 2008 | 11 books mentioned 1 2 min read

Theresa writes in with this request:I saw a book at Barnes & Noble one day. It was on the new book table. But there was only one copy, and not sure if it’s a new book translation or someone just dropped the book on the table. The book was a translation and fiction. The storyline is about a woman who is the “concierge” or lobby supervisor of an apartment building. She secretly loves art and music, but is aloof and “grumpy.” She befriends a little girl that has just moved into the building, along with a man who enjoys music.I think it is translated from a female french author (she has had other of her books translated).Unfortunately, I didn’t write the name of the book down, or the author. When I went back to get the book, it was gone. I thought the title was a synonym of “concierge”, but not sure. I even asked a friend of mine who was a French teacher and she couldn’t think of the word. I have checked Barnes & Noble online, but the book doesn’t show up.Any ideas on the name of this book? It has been driving me crazy.I can think of few things more frustrating than spying what looks like an intriguing book, only to lose it to the fastidiousness of a book store clerk. Luckily, in this case, a little research has turned up the answer to this missed connection.The book Theresa seeks is The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and translated by Alison Anderson, and the plot is much as Theresa recalls: We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renee, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renee is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence. Then there’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius…The book was recently put out by Europa, a smaller publisher known for its championing of translated works, and was a big seller in France. According to Time, which profiled Barbery recently, The Elegance of the Hedgehog had been “at or near the top of France’s sales charts for 102 straight weeks since its September 2006 publication” through the end of August this year. Muriel Barbery is French and something of an overnight sensation in her country:Only two years ago, Barbery, 39, was a philosophy teacher in Normandy whose spare-time fiction writing had produced a single published work: the 2000 novel Une Gourmandise (A Delicacy). That tale of a world-famous food critic with deathbed yearnings for life’s forgotten tastes won her a single award for culinary writing and a few encouraging reviews. Elegance, by contrast, which the weekly L’Express hailed for celebrating “the tiny pleasures of life… with the timeless nostalgia of a Marcel Proust,” seems to have scored a direct hit on the global zeitgeist.Thanks for the great question and enjoy the book!See also: The Elegance of the Hedgehog would be a great answer to our 52nd book question.

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Ask a Book Question: The Twenty-first in a Series (A Rose by Any Other Name)

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July 10, 2004 | 11 books mentioned

Hey folks. I’m back from the honeymoon, sunburned and with my energy replenished. My inbox is full and I have much to write about so stay tuned. To start, here’s a mysterious book question I received from Vicki:Looking for a book. Think it was called Rose Manor? Fiction, About a woman that is married to a police officer that beats her and she runs away and hides. She changes her name and he sets out to find her to kill her. She goes to a shelter that helps her get a job and a new home and identity. She buys a painting that comes alive, and she finds that out because there are crickets that come out of the painting. There is also a woman in the painting that moves around. The lady in the book also gets a job reading books to be put on tape. Does anyone know what this book is? Please help.Well, your description sounded familiar to me, but a title search turned up nothing. Then it hit me. Only Stephen King would combine violence and the supernatural in the way you describe. You almost had the title; it’s King’s 1995 best seller, Rose Madder.

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Ask a Book Question: The Fourteenth in a Series (Samurai Book)

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March 17, 2004 | 11 books mentioned 2 min read

Billy writes in, his interest piqued by the big screen version of The Last Samurai, looking for books about Japan’s wandering warriors: After the movie The Last Samurai, I became intrigued by the true life and history of these people. Don’t want a cheesy rendition of the movie. Any advice?I didn’t see the film, but I was pretty sure that it was at least loosely based on a book. That’s not quite true. It turns out that the film is based on a true story, and that a book that gives a more historically accurate account of that true story was released around the same time that the film was released in theaters. That book, by Emory University professor of history and Director of East Asian Studies Mark Ravina, is called The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori. From what I understand it’s an enlightening portrait of the period covered in the movie, but it is perhaps too dense and scholarly to be a starting point to learn about the samurai. Although maybe it is since, after investigating my usual sources, it doesn’t appear as though there is a good and broad accounting of the samurai period. Most of the books out there seem designed either for scholars or hobbyists (particularly those who have a fascination with the armor and weapons of the period). Nonetheless, some of these might be an interesting way to broaden your understanding of the subject. From the hobbyist side of things Samurai: An Illustrated History by Mitsuo Kure sounds like a good pick. It is filled with illustrations of armor and weapons as well as battle maps and diagrams. It actually sounds pretty interesting for those who learn visually. From among the scholarly books, most of which seem to be broader histories of Japan with big sections on the samurai period, I would recommend The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen. It is a very readable overview of Japanese history from 1600 to the present. Still, it probably doesn’t give much insight into the samurai themselves. For that, you might want to try Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, which, though it has acquired a cultish following in recent years, is perhaps the only surviving work by an actual samurai. The book outlines the philosophy of the samurai and it has in recent years been touted by those who believe its lessons are applicable to modern times. Finally, if you interested in reading some fiction that takes feudal Japan as its setting, read James Clavell’s Shogun. People don’t really read Clavell much anymore but this book was a blockbuster when it first came out and is by all accounts a great read.

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Ask a Book Question (#58): Books for Fans of Deadwood

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February 12, 2008 | 11 books mentioned 7 2 min read

Poornima writes in:My husband recently stumbled across an HBO series called Deadwood in the library. It’s a television series set in the Black Hills (Sioux Country – Dakotas and Wyoming) around 1876 and features a whole assortment of historically famous/notorious characters including Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane.I was wondering if you or your readers could direct us to some good historical fiction set in the period that captures the essence of Deadwood and the frontier spirit. It’s quite a fascinating aspect of American history.Your interest in historical fiction in the same line as HBO’s Deadwood brings Larry McMurtry to mind first. I’d be very surprised if David Milch, Deadwood’s creator, hadn’t read McMurtry. McMurtry’s historical fiction about the American West – Lonesome Dove, Anything for Billy, The Streets of Laredo – is wonderful, and besides sharing Deadwood’s historical milieu, it also shares its tone, that wonderful mix of emotional intensity, brutality, tenderness and humor.The book of McMurtry’s that has the most explicit overlap with Deadwood is Buffalo Girls. This novel intertwines the stories of several different figures whose lives coincide with the winding down of the Wild West. Calamity Jane – so wonderfully portrayed by Robin Weigert in Deadwood – is one of these characters. McMurtry’s stuff is historically responsible but it is also, as was Deadwood, clearly enchanted with the old West and interested in its mythic, larger-than-life personalities. Anything For Billy, which takes Billy the Kid as its protagonist, tells his life from the perspective of an Eastern businessman/writer of dime-novels.Willa Cather’s novels too might be of interest. Quite a lot of them are also set at moments of shift from wildness and lawlessness to “civilization” in various parts of North America. Death Comes to the Archbishop, one of my favorites, describes the settling of what is now New Mexico by French Catholic missionaries. Cather also offers fictionalized legends of the American West – Kit Carson figures in Death, for example. I also really like Shadows on the Rock, which is about the settling of Quebec. Cather’s work is a bit more lyrical and literary than McMurtry’s but, depending on your mood, they can be more satisfying for this.I also have two cinematic recommendations: One is an indie Western called The Ballad of Little Jo. It tells the story of a wealthy nineteenth-century society woman who flees the East and her family, disguises herself as a man and lives as a cowboy in the West. That’s if you’re interested in other artistic depictions of women in the West.A final recommendation is HBO’s Rome. I know that historically this is rather far afield but, apparently, David Milch originally imagined what became Deadwood as set in Rome at the time of Caesar. Such a show, however – Rome – was already in production when he pitched his idea and so he shifted the setting to nineteenth century Dakota territory. Though not Deadwood’s equal (I think Deadwood possibly the finest television show ever made), Rome shares something of Deadwood’s interest in lawlessness, or a different version of law – a more Hobbesian vision of human society in which power and aggression and ambition have more of a role to play.Also recommended by The Millions for fans of Deadwood:The Ox Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg ClarkMost of the books by Cormac McCarthyWelcome to Hard Times by E.L. Doctorow (mood: brutal)Charles Portis’ wonderful True Grit (mood: deadpan)Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (mood: dreamlike)Oakley Hall’s Warlock

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12 comments:

  2. If you're up for something a bit odd, I'd heartily recommend Mark Smith's The Death of the Detective. It's the detective novel as creeping nightmare, with Chicago playing the role of a disturbingly familiar hell. The detective of the title slowly disintegrates as he wanders all over Chicago, seeming to hit every conceivable neighborhood, each of which is carefully and memorably rendered. It's a chilling, unforgettable book.

    Oh, and if I may be allowed to recommend a couple of books from my employer, the University of Chicago Press, how about Ben Hecht'sA Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago and Mike Royko's One More Time and For the Love of Mike, all collections of great columns from giants in the history of Chicago newspapers. And Royko's book about the first mayor Daley and his machine, Boss, which I only wish my employer published.

  3. I would recommend my own company's Looped, by Andrew Winston, which unlike most Chicago novels does not focus on a particular neighborhood, but rather takes on a much greater breadth of the city through its large, diverse, Altman-esque cast of characters.

  4. The Lazarus Project was a great book, but Chicago was mostly a footnote there to Eastern Europe. But ditto on the Upton Sinclair and Stuart Dybek titles you mentioned – all three are must-reads, along with absolutely anything by Mike Royko (including Boss, his Daley bio). I'd also strongly recommend Nelson Algren's novel The Man With the Golden Arm and story collection The Neon Wilderness (and though his nonfiction Chicago: City on the Make is one of my alltime favorites, its obscure references make it better for a more seasoned Chicagoan than a neophyte), Richard Wright's Native Son, Ward Just's An Unfinished Season and Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned. And those are just for starters.

  5. Thanks everyone, these are awesome. I'll definitely be making multiple trips to the Northwestern bookstore. :-)

    I'd also love to hear anymore suggestions people have, so I'll keep watching the comments.

  6. Richard Wright's Native Son should be on this list. Set in Chicago in the 1930's it chronicles the decline and fall of a young black man named Bigger Thomas–not light summer reading (race, class, the absence of social justice, an unlikeable hero)–but one of the great American novels, I think.

  7. Try Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks. It's a novella set in Chicago's African American neighborhoods during the 1940's, and tells the story of the title character in 34 vignettes. It is Brooks' only work of adult fiction–she was primarily a poet–but she should have written more because I think this book is tremendous. Maud Martha's story is nothing special–no high drama or headline material–the real attraction to this story is in the language Brooks uses to sketch out the arc of a human life, and in the character that Brooks has created in Maud Martha.

  8. Scott Simon of NPR Weekend Edition just published a novel about Chicago, Windy City. I haven't read it yet, but it's in the stack. It's a murder mystery (the mayor is killed), but it's mostly about Chicago politics, from what I've read. If you like detective stories, I would also recommend the early Sara Paretsky detective books featuring V.I Warshawsky. The later books don't have as much Chicago color (I don't know about the most recent books in the series–I stopped reading them about three novels ago). But I lived in Chicago when the earlier books came out, and my friends and I tried to find the bar where V.I. hung out. The descriptions were based on real neighborhoods, but given fictional names.

  10. Sorry I didn't see this topic sooner as I believe that James T. Farrel definitely rates a mention.

  11. One of the few mystery writers I read is Sara Paretsky whose feisty and very socially aware and active PI is based in Chicago. This is where I have learned about the actual people and neighborhoods of Chicago.

  12. Michael Harvey has written two great detective novels that take place in Chicago: The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor.

    Sean Cherchover's Big City, Bad Blood is also worth a read.

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Ask a Book Question: The Twelfth in a Series (Book with Occasional Music)

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January 14, 2004 | 11 books mentioned 2 min read

Jeff wrote in with this question about The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem:I guess this is a book question. Certainly it’s a question related to a book. In this week’s Village Voice, there is an article about a promotional 2CD-set meant to be a companion to Jonathan Lethem’s “Fortress of Solitude.” It sounds quite interesting. Does anybody know how it can be obtained? Here’s the URL to the article: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0401/christgau2.phpI found this question especially intriguing because there were many times while I was reading Fortress of Solitude that I wished the book had come with a cd. Music of many genres permeates the book, some of the songs and artists I was familiar with, others I had never heard of, and as I was reading I found myself creating a soundtrack to the book in my head, inventing my own songs if I didn’t recognize an artist or song. It was an interesting reading experience. But, now, apparently there is a cd out there, and as Robert Christgau, the Village Voice music reviewer, makes clear in his review, you’re not going to get your hands on it. This seemed to be confirmed by my research as none of my contacts at Random House / Doubleday had even heard of the cd. Apparently the 2 cd set has been handed out here and there to friends and fans at book signings, and due, of course, to copywrite issues, this fantastic compilation will never truly be released. But, as is often the case these days, now you can make your very own at home. Lucky for us, David, who runs a Jonathan Lethem site has posted the track listing, so with a little bit of elbow grease and a modest disregard for copywrite law you can have your very own Fortress of Solitude compilation.

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Ask a Book Question: The Eleventh in a Series (Tilting at [more affordable] Windmills)

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December 9, 2003 | 11 books mentioned 2 min read

My good and old friend Emre wrote in with this question. He just finished Hunter S. Thompson’s classic Hell’s Angels, and is pining to read a certain new book that I’ve been mentioning quite a bit lately:when’s the paperback for [Edith] Grossman’s Don Quixote coming out?Book pricing is a classic example of what we used to call price discrimination in my economics classes. The way the book publishers see it, there is a certain percentage of the population out there for whom getting a book as soon as it comes out is worth the premium of ten bucks or so. These people are willing to buy the book at this higher price, so the publishers take advantage of it. Once the demand for the higher priced edition has dried up, they put out a lower priced edition and then they can sell the same book to a second group of people for whom owning the book is worth less. It’s good business, actually, because the publishers can cash in on the pent-up demand for each title. Other businesses rarely have this luxury because products are usually not as individualized as books are. So, how long does it take for that first level of demand to dry up? When customers ask me, I usually say it can take anywhere from six to eighteen months, and that it varies from title to tile with the only real hard and fast rule being that the really, really big sellers in hardcover tend not to come out in paperback for quite a while, for obvious reasons. I suspected, however, that Emre was looking for a more specific answer. So, I tracked down the phone number for Ecco Press, the division of Random House that is putting out both the hardcover and paperback editions of this book, and rung them up. The gentleman that I reached there looked through his records and told me that they have set a tentative release date of October 2004 for the paperback. So there you have it Emre, either you can sit tight til next October or you can go ahead and pony up the cash. It all depends on how you quantify your pent-up demand.

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Ask a Book Question: The First in a Series (Life After Harry)

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August 14, 2003 | 11 books mentioned 4 min read

Heather wrote in with a great question about life after Harry Potter:Recently I have devoured the series of books by Philip Pullman called “His Dark Materials” (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass). While the shelf at the bookstore I found them in was young adult and science fiction/fantasy, I felt they went far beyond the scope of what a young person would appreciate. Much like the fascination with the Harry Potter series by both young and older, but far more compelling in my opinion. Can you recommend any other authors/books similar to Pullman other than the more familiar Tolkien and Lewis?Harry Potter, as everyone knows, has dominated the world of young adult and fantasy fiction of late. J. K. Rowling’s greatest asset is her boundless imagination, but she can be lacking in her mastery of language and form. So what else is there? As you suggest, Philip Pullman has emerged with an incredible series of books (which I, too, devoured about a year ago). They exceed Harry Potter in nearly every sense, and Pullman manages to strike the perfect balance, appealing to children (and clearly adults, as well) with thrilling adventures, characters, and a seamless world, while never ever dumbing down for his young readers. It’s really a great series, one of the highlights in books from the last few years, if you ask me. But you already know this. My other favorite children’s fantasy series is Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. The world he creates has a medival, Tolkeinesque feel to it, though instead of knights and princesses or hobbits and orcs, this world is populated by tribes of animals, mice and ferrets and stoats and many others. I started reading these when I was very young and I made my way through at least six or seven, so I can vouch that these are great books. The series begins with Redwall, Mossflower, and Mattimeo with many beyond those. Having said that, I don’t think that anything out there is as good as C. S. Lewis’ “Narnia” series or J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series. They are the masters that preside over the genre. Another thought: try revisiting (or making your acquaintance with) some classic books. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne or The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Great books one and all. Anybody else have thoughts on though this one. Hit the comment link below and let us know.Mucho Mutis!!!My buddy Brian who is a fellow follower of the travels of Maqroll the Gaviero notified me of two recent developments concerning the head Maqroll-watcher himself, Alvaro Mutis. First, and most exciting, it appears as though a new book by Mutis will appear in English for the first time ever this fall. It’s called The Mansion & Other Stories, and it will be released by the Canadian publisher Ekstasis Editions. I have so many questions: will there be stories about Maqroll, will this edition be well-translated, will the stories bear any resemblence to the novellas that I know and love? I can’t wait to find out. So far all I know is this. In the early 1970s, Mutis got into an argument with his friend, the director Luis Bunuel. Bunuel felt that a “gothic” story could not be set in the tropics because that sort of story required the ambient chill of higher latitudes. Mutis strenuously disagreed, and in order to prove him wrong penned the story, The Mansion of Araucaima, the title story of this collection. Bunuel loved the story and expressed his desire to make it into a film, but he died before he was able to carry it out. My friend Brian also alerted me to the fact that the current issue of World Literature Today is devoted to Mutis. If you’re interested, you can find on the site: ten poems by Mutis, Mutis on Mutis, and several more academic papers on this fantastic writer.The Return of PolidoriThe Robert Polidori book that I mentioned a few days ago has hit bookstores. It’s called Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl. Polidori is one of the most skilled and sought after architectural photographers in the world, and in this capacity he is often called upon to capture the sleek and the new. But anyone who has seen his book Havana knows that architectural decay is his true calling. At Chernobyl and in Pripyat he presents the shattered world of nuclear disaster, both frozen in time and abandoned to a new and dangerous mutant form of nature. As always, he lets color do all the work in these photographs, seemingly luring the most poignant hues to the foreground of the compositions. But I have to say, this collection, due to the nature of the subject matter, exudes a cold and souless sort of beauty while the aching, crumbling beauty of Havana is more suited to his particular skills.A note of things to comeI finished Jonathan Lethem’s new novel The Fortress of Solitude, a week or so ago, and I intend to put some more elaborate comments on the book up here once it comes out, but I will make few comments now, too. Look for this book to be huge this fall. There will be a big push from Random House, and along the book distribution pipeline, big numbers are being anticipated. The book is very good in the same way that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is very good. The books are similar in structure and theme, both are very ambitious and largely succeed in their grand scope. Pehaps most interestingly, the careers of Chabon and Lethem are parallel. Lethem has several books under his belt each more widely read and more favorably recieved than the last, and now this latest book will be a best-seller and will make him more of a household name. The same thing happened to Chabon. Finally, I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that The Fortress of Solitude will win the Pulitzer Prize, (or at the very least will be a finalist) like Kavalier & Clay did a few years back.

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