Helen Shiller—a longtime radical activist and the new alderman in Chicago’s 46th ward—turned 40 on November 24, 1987. Two days later, she went to City Hall for an 11am meeting with the man who was something of a mentor to her,…
Antony Barone Kolenc’s The Merchant’s Curse is a historical mystery with a strong supernatural element, set in 12th-century England and written for children and young teens. Even more, it’s a kind of morality play, designed to teach lessons about faith…
In her new book of poetry Woman without Shame, Sandra Cisneros looks aging in the face and laughs. She laughs at the frenetic lusts and couplings of youth—at broken hearts and confusions. She thumbs her nose at her prudish Catholic upbringing…
As a title, An Angel in Sodom is evocative and a bit ambiguous. The subtitle of Jim Elledge’s book is much more direct: Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay Rights Movement. This is a biography of Gerber, a cantankerous…
Near the end of my hourlong walk around Graceland Cemetery the other day, I went past a stone obelisk, maybe 30 feet tall, and noticed this on the side: SANDRA E. RITTER NOV. 22, 1952 NOV. 27, 1952 SUSAN E.…
Carla Sawyer is a tall, smart-alecky 21-year-old who’s working for a landscaping company until she figures out what to do with her life. She’s on a job in one of the tonier areas of Marin County, north of San Francisco,…
In his story collection Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, Chicagoan Tim Jones-Yelvington zestfully recasts gay men and boys in the central roles of a surprisingly wide array of literary vehicles, including an American Girl-ish story, a Raymond…
When I visited the Newberry Library Book Fair on Friday, I knew I had to come up with a strategy. It’s a locally famous sale, featuring tens of thousands of used works available very cheaply. A kind of Nirvana for a…
The pain that S. Yarberry suffers as a transgender person is strikingly described in their new book of jagged, anguished poetry A Boy in the City. It is pain set within the context of other, related emotional torment, including the…
Summer mornings, in my West Side childhood, I would go out on our rickety second-story back porch, and, across the alley, on the worn, gray asphalt of the parking lot/school playground, I’d see thousands of sparkling stars, constellations of slivers…
The Fact of Memory: 114 Ruminations and FabricationsBy Aaron AngelloRose Metal Press In a piece titled “Think,” Aaron Angello tells of two conversations about what makes a poem a poem. In one, Angello argued that a poem is something that the…
Rig Veda Americanus: Sacred Songs of the Ancient Mexicans Edited with a paraphrase, notes and vocabulary by Daniel G. Brinton Amika Press If you pick up a copy of Daniel G. Brinton’s Rig Veda Americanus: Sacred Songs of the Ancient…
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez Haymarket Books, 216 pages, $14.97 Chicago’s Haymarket Books promotes The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez as an “easy-to-use…
The Fabulous Clipjoint By Fredric Brown Penzler Fredric Brown’s murder mystery, The Fabulous Clipjoint, first published in 1947, and reissued last December by Penzler Publishers, was good enough to win an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. But you don’t have…
The Fountain By David Scott Hay Whiskey Tit Jasper P. Duckworth is a critic in an alternate universe Chicago for Chicago Shoulders, a New City-like (or, if you will, Third Coast Review-like) publication. The Associate Media Critic, which is to…
The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom by Richard Reeder Propertius Press The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom by Chicago writer Richard Reeder is a curious book, and not just because it owes its inspiration to that famous and famously challenging…
City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America By Donald L. Miller Simon & Shuster For a quarter of a century, I’ve used Donald L. Miller’s City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and…
Bob Dylan’s New York By June Skinner Sawyers The History Press,142 pages, $21.99 First of all, a story: In April 2010, I was in downtown Duluth on a freelance writing assignment, and by 5pm or so I’d finished my interviews…
Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention By Ben Wilson Anchor Books In the 1850s, Swedish writer Fredricka Bremer visited Chicago and, to say the least, was not impressed. Ben Wilson notes in his sweeping and astute Metropolis:…
Note: Stephanie Gangi will discuss her new novel Carry the Dog in conversation with Chicago author Christie Tate at 6pm Wednesday, November 3, in a free virtual event through Barbara’s Bookstore, held on Crowdcast. Carry the Dog By Stephanie…
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