IN THE LOOP: SIDEWALKS
BY RICK KOGAN
‘Admirably nasty’
CHICAGO WRITER’S MYSTERY TALE WINS PRAISE FROM STEPHEN KING AND A NOD FROM HER PEERS
I don’t know the people who voted for the recent Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Awards, and I haven’t read the book that they deemed the Best First Novel by an American Writer, “The Faithful Spy” by Alex Berenson. I’m sure it’s a fine book, but I have a hard time believing it could be better than “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn.
I am not the only one to have this opinion. Brett Nolan, a Chicago attorney, read all the other books in the category and thought “Sharp Objects” the hands-down finest. He might, of course, be biased, since he and Flynn are to be married later this year.
A few weeks before the awards presentation in New York, Flynn was sitting in the Wicker Park apartment she shares with a large television set, a lot of books, not much furniture and a black cat named Roy.
“I’m honored just to be part of the awards and I’m psyched to be going,” she said. “Talk about a wonderful community of writers I’ll be meeting. And the most exciting thing will be to thank Stephen King. He’s the master of ceremonies.”
He is also the author of the eye-catching jacket blurb on Flynn’s novel: “To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild . . . I found myself dreading the last 30 pages or so but was helpless to stop turning them. Then, after the lights were out, the story just stayed there in my head, coiled and hissing, like a snake in a cave. An admirably nasty piece of work, elevated by sharp writing and sharper insights.”
The book, about a young female reporter who returns to her hometown to cover the murder of two preteen girls, has gotten great reviews, nibbles from moviefolk and been published in 18 countries.
“‘Sharp Objects’ was relatively easy to write. I had no agent, no contract. Almost no one knew I was writing it,” she says. “The second novel [as yet untitled] is scheduled to be published in the summer or fall of 2008, and I am much more self-conscious about it. I hear voices: ‘It’s too much like “Sharp Objects,” It’s not enough like “Sharp Objects.” ‘ “
Flynn is from Kansas City and got a degree from the University of Kansas before attending graduate school at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Her desire to be a hard-news reporter did not jibe with her sensibilities, and she accepted a low-level job with Entertainment Weekly magazine in New York. After a while in the magazine’s Los Angeles office, in March 2006 she moved to Chicago, where she works as the television critic for the magazine.
Flynn loves Chicago and “its energy.”
Her neighborhood, once a tough and crowded Polish slum, is now one of the city’s most pleasant and lively. Not far from Flynn’s apartment is the last place writer Nelson Algren lived in Chicago. Algren, by the way, won the first National Book Award for “The Man With the Golden Arm.” It didn’t do him a whole lot of good.
rkogan@tribune.com
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Gray anatomy
CHICAGO’S LAKEFRONT HAS HOSTED so many walkathons that it’s hard to imagine a new wrinkle on the genre, but what’s different about next Sunday’s “Walk in the Park” benefit for Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly is that a large number of the participants will be over age 75. In fact, 50 elders will lead the pack when the 3.5-mile stroll through Lincoln Park starts at 9:30 a.m. from LaSalle and Stockton Drives.
You may remember the organization as the Little Brothers of the Poor, its name when founded in 1959. It was renamed in the ’80s to better reflect its mission–providing companionship to seniors who have no family or social life. Last year, 1,050 lonely Chicago elders were served by some 1,388 volunteers. “This is a youth-oriented society that doesn’t focus on people who’ve given so much of themselves in the past,” says Executive Director Simone Mitchell-Peterson. To remedy that, the group sponsors lunches, weekend bashes, birthday parties, even sock hops for oldsters. It also pays home visits to the immobilized.
The walk (plus a barbecue) is the group’s first big public fundraiser. Come on out with an elderly friend or relative. They can go a short distance, use walkers or motorized scooters, or even be “virtual” walkers. “We hope to dispel myths about the elderly,” says Mitchell-Peterson. “They enjoy life like anyone else. We also hope that people who were raised by their grandparents will walk in memory of them.” Call 312-604-7290 or visit chicago.littlebrothers.org for details.
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social studies
YES. . . BOLINGBROOK!
Hot spot: The Promenade Bolingbrook. . . Downtown Bolingbrook? Can you feel the heat, Naperville? It’s coming from the “One Red Hot Night” Latin-themed fundraiser inside the new Macy’s. Wild weather, including a tornado, couldn’t discourage the 1,800 guests who came to the Main Street-style shopping center and raised more than $400,000 for the Children’s Emergency Room at Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital.
Private room: Mingling among the real ER doctors in the VIP room was Laura Innes, who plays a doctor on “ER.” The show may have one more season before NBC pulls the plug, Innes said. “I can only say that Luka [heartthrob Goran Visnjic plays Dr. Luka Kovac] will be in and out, but he’s not leaving the show.” Actress Stacy Keibler of the likely canceled “What About Brian” joined Innes in the star lounge. The former “Dancing with the Stars” star–she placed third in season two–has a development deal with ABC, so don’t worry about not seeing her in prime time. Until then, catch her this August in the movie comedy “The Comebacks.”
–Reported by Celia Daniels
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roamin’ numerals
7,500
DISTANCE IN LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH TO ETA CARINAE, A GIANT STAR IN THE MILKY WAY THOUGHT TO BE READY TO EXPLODE. IF IT DOES, YOU’D BE ABLE TO READ AT NIGHT BY ITS LIGHT.
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sunday 6:42 a.m.
BY CHARLES LEROUX
DESPITE THE SMILES, this pile of awakening teenage humanity had a serious purpose. These Bethel University students traveled from St. Paul to the Soldier Field parking lot hoping to help open American eyes to the suffering in northern Uganda’s refugee camps. The event, “Displace Me,” took place here and in 14 other U.S. cities, involved 68,000 young people and was organized by Invisible Children Inc. The purpose: to educate students about lives torn apart by warfare in Uganda and to have the students pressure their Congress members to support peace efforts there. James Broom, 18–he’s the one in the striped shirt–said, “After the sun went down, it got pretty cold, but kids in Uganda sleep like that every night.”
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CULTURAL RIFFS
IN 1900, 40 STUDENTS from a Chicago medical school were treated to a two-day trip to Detroit with all expenses paid by drug giant Parke, Davis & Co. The trip included a banquet, a concert and a tour of the firm’s labs. This incident, cited in the book, “Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession and the Pharmaceutical Industry,” shows that the wooing of doctors by pharmaceutical houses is not new. But the practice seems rampant today, with firms showering trips, gifts and cash on MDs to get them to prescribe their drugs–at times putting patients at risk, e.g., a recent report said Amgen and Johnson & Johnson are paying hundreds of millions to MDs to push unsafe anemia drugs.
In this extraordinary book, Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist, lays out in great detail what he judges to be Big Pharma’s misdeeds and the seduction of U.S. docs. His targets are the influence of company drug reps, the suppression of negative research data, the abuse of patents, phony advertising and weak oversight by the FDA. Writes Brody: “. . .The issues are larger, more serious and more looming than most of us had realized.”
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TRIBia
Q: The 1964 movie “Robin and the Seven Hoods,” which was set in Chicago and starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., snared an Oscar nomination for what song by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen?
A: “My Kind of Town.”
