Bum Town
By Tony Fitzpatrick
Tia Chucha Press, $16.95 paper
On the acknowledgements page of his fourth book of poetry, “Bum Town,” Tony Fitzpatrick thanks his publisher, local literary mecca the Guild Complex, “for initiating a white trash outreach program.”
But all modesty, self-deprecation and humor aside, Fitzpatrick, with this new title, has cemented his name on the Chicago writers walk of fame. Not every city is so fortunate. For decades now, each generation of Chicagoans has had a voice. Algren. Terkel. Royko. So many of these writers share the same qualities: gritty, lyrical, tough-as-nails, with an unshakable conscience. They are poets who write equally of the beauty and the beast. They deftly reflect the city they write and care about — an aesthetic contradiction of rusted grace. Tony Fitzpatrick writes this way.
“Bum Town” is a hard-boiled yet deeply meaningful paean to Fitzpatrick’s late father and the streets of Chicago’s South Side. Fitzpatrick’s steely verse is augmented by a series of stunning companion etchings and drawings, a gallery of graphic black-and-white imagery. In the poems — beautiful urban nocturnes, really — he drives around the city in his mind, seated in the passenger seat of his father’s Oldsmobile with the “Murderous rumble.”
He hears the voice of Bob Elson doing the radio broadcasts of the old White Sox games. He wants to know the secrets of Comiskey Park’s exploding scoreboard. He listens to the sounds of broken bottles, stray animals and sirens. He sees beer bellies and crew cuts and the ghost of his Uncle Raymond who died so long ago while trying to hop a freight train. And he remembers his dad:
Under the constellations
My Dad buys me an Italian ice
With lemon peels I can taste
The sun in.
The smelt are running
Off Montrose Harbor.
My Dad points to the North Star
And shows me how boats
Box the compass
Around it.
Under the dock the smelt
Are a whir of silvery light-
As indecipherable as
The tails of
Comets.
“Bum Town” is rugged and passionate and strikingly beautiful. Fitzpatrick has captured the essence of our city.
Any Way the Wind Blows
By E. Lynn Harris
Doubleday, $19.95
John Basil Henderson, a former NFL star, is an irrepressible bisexual who left his fiance at the altar in last year’s “Not a Day Goes By,” by Chicago native E. Lynn Harris.
In Harris’ latest novel, Henderson is still an unreformed, unrepentant man-about-town in New York, and his ex-fiance, Yancey Braxton, a Broadway diva, hasn’t forgotten or forgiven his desertion. She has recently returned from Los Angeles, where she spent a year getting a record contract. Now calling herself Yancey B., the rising rhythm-and-blues singer releases her first single and video, incidentally about two male lovers and a spurned woman. Henderson, who has become a successful sports agent, wants to protect his secret life and budding business but falls into an affair with an obsessive, scheming male model, Bart Dunbar.
The three struggle in an absurd triangle of sex, secrets and vengeance. They’re saucy and naughty and unscrupulously funny. Harris delivers another feisty romance about misbehavior and melodramatics.
City Watch: Discovering the Uncommon Chicago
By Jon Anderson
University of Iowa Press, $19.95 paper
How Tribune reporter Jon Anderson discovers his offbeat stories is anybody’s guess. But twice weekly in his “City Watch” columns, he manages to unearth the real secret Chicago with an eye for the odd, the arcane and the warm-hearted. In so many ways, Anderson’s observations on daily Chicago city life serve as literary comfort food. But with these simple, short passages, there is always a deeper level of subtextual truth.
Gathered here, dating back to 1985, are, presumably, a series of Anderson’s best. There’s the story of the street-savvy poet turned Gold Coast maid. There’s the article about the circus school in Evanston. There’s an essay about the joys of traveling by Amtrak and the strangers you might cozy up next to.
While not every column translates as well into book form (addresses and telephone numbers within essays occasionally cast a travel guide hue upon the book), Anderson’s ruminations are pure slice-of-life Americana all told with a Chicago bent. Fans of the columnist will love it, and for the uninitiated, “City Watch: Discovering the Uncommon Chicago” is a great place to start.
The Devil’s Shadow
By Hugh Holton
Forge, $25.95
When Chicago police officer/superthriller author Hugh Holton died of cancer last May, his long-running cast of adventure heroes, led by the fictional Chicago Police Department chief of detectives, Larry Cole, went with him. But Holton’s fans know they lost so much more. Over the course of his eight high-adventure books, Holton, a 29-year veteran of the Chicago force, brought the action-packed milieu of James Bond under the cacophony of the “L” tracks. Holton, importantly, also populated his stories with a lively cast of predominantly black heroes and villains.
With this new book, Cole matches wits with Juliana Saint, nicknamed “L’Ombre du Diable” — “The Devil’s Shadow.” Saint is a cunning international thief who is in cahoots with the local crime syndicate, led by boss Jake Romano. Romano needs Saint to pull off a huge bank heist in order to finance a mob-run casino. Things get more complicated, if not predictable, when Cole gets romantically involved with Saint. The story darts from North Michigan Avenue to the South Side to remote Caribbean islands.
“The Devil’s Shadow” is typically Holton: Its plot is vast and intricate, its pacing of the relentless-page-turner sort.
Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club
By John Doolittle
University of Notre Dame Press, $22.95
For more than 35 years, Don McNeill brought his Chicago-based radio program, the “Breakfast Club,” into homes across the country. From June 1933 to December 1968, this precursor to Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon and even David Letterman’s small-town faux naivete, crackled over the airwaves with a morning blend of interview, comedy, music and audience participation. Listeners were encouraged to take a seat at McNeill’s make-believe breakfast table. For celebrities, the show was the place to be heard. Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Jane Russell — they all stopped by.
Author John Doolittle, an associate professor of broadcast journalism at American University, has put together a nostalgic, thoroughly researched, behind-the-scenes history of the program aimed squarely at the resurging interest in all things “Greatest Generation.” The book includes a CD of sentimental, sample broadcasts. And while those unfamiliar with McNeill’s long-running show may find this book to be too detailed-too in-the-know-anyone with a flair for popular culture will surely enjoy it.
`57, Chicago
By Steve Monroe
Talk Miramax/Hyperion, $21
First-time novelist and local real-estate broker (probably not for long) Steve Monroe struck paydirt with “’57 Chicago” when Talk Miramax acquired his story for the silver screen. And it’s no wonder the Hollywood moguls loved the book: It’s “The Sopranos” meets “Raging Bull” meets “Rocky,” all rolled into late-1950s Chicago (hence the title).
Noir, seamy, foul-mouthed and flinty, “’57 Chicago” is the tale of Bobby “The Lip” Lipranski, a down-on-his-luck fight promoter trying to arrange a life-salvaging bout. The Lip latches onto a young fighter, Junior Hamilton, a powerful, unpredictable, violent boxer. But when the local mob steps in to fix the bout, the worlds of Lipranski and Hamilton begin to spiral dangerously out of control.
Monroe plays the noir game well, while occasionally venturing into the inherent cliches of the style. Still, “’57 Chicago” is loaded with period detail, an obvious testament to much research.
A Chicago Firehouse: Stories of Wrigleyville’s Engine 78
By Karen Kruse, foreword by Mike Ditka
Arcadia, $19.99
Karen Kruse calls it the “family business”: firefighting. For 14 years her father served with Engine 78, which is, undoubtedly, the most famous Fire Department rig in all of Chicago, thanks to its location just beyond the left-field ivy of Wrigley Field.
Kruse’s book is the meticulously researched story of 78, its long history (dating back to 1884) and its firefighters. The story is told through numerous anecdotes and vintage photographs from the point of view of a woman who grew up amid this tight-knit community. The story explores the people and the tragedies surrounding 78, and even tells the legend of how the old rig got its number.
While the book can sometimes wax too didactic, too detailed, it is the author’s own personal attachment to this storied firetruck and firehouse that makes this a great read for anyone interested in Chicago lore.
