Stuart Dybek is sure to be the talk of Printers Row Lit Fest this year, as he returns in June with two new story collections, “Paper Lantern” and “Ecstatic Cahoots.” He appeared at the first Lit Fest in 1985, and this year, he will be awarded the Near South Planning Board’s Harold Washington Literary Award, an honor bestowed each year in conjunction with the book fair. Dybek is, of course, a quintessential Chicago writer. At least one of his earlier works — “The Coast of Chicago,” “I Sailed With Magellan” or “Childhood and Other Neighborhoods” — should be mandatory reading for residents. And so, assuming you’re caught up on your required reading, we’re offering a roundup of five works of fiction marbled with Chicago culture and history.
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Painted Cities by Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski
Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski drew on stories from his Pilsen childhood to write “Painted Cities,” but it’s his distaste for nostalgia that makes the book remarkable. “Painted Cities” is the product of an extended act of memory, a recovery and sifting through of often painful scenes of a community plagued by poverty and gang violence but redeemed, at least partly, by intense friendships, family ties and the inextinguishable hope for better days ahead.
Bedrock Faith by Eric Charles May
“Bedrock Faith” is set in Parkland — a place of Eric Charles May’s creation, but strikingly similar to Morgan Park, the South Side neighborhood where May grew up. Filled with the righteous fervor of a jailhouse conversion, Stew Pot returns home and quickly becomes its self-appointed moral judge and jury, tangling with neighbors for being insufficiently religious. Proving worthy of his nickname, Stew Pot soon has the community in an uproar.
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge by Peter Orner
In stories about premature death and inexplicable divorce, about nightmares and one-night stands, Peter Orner skillfully blurs the lines between memories retrieved and those long forgotten to suggest that great art is always born out of an acute awareness of the abiding disconnect. This latest collection from Orner, a Highland Park native, travels from Chicago to Cape Cod and beyond.
The Old Neighborhood by Bill Hillmann
Bill Hillmann’s novel is about Joe Walsh, a kid growing up in a place — in this case, Edgewater — where all the choices seem bad. White flight, then gradual gentrification, have transformed these streets over the years. What sets this tough guy’s tale apart is a native’s knowledge of the terrain and a recognition that even the starkest of conflicts are rarely black and white.
What We’ve Lost Is Nothing by Rachel Louise Snyder
Rachel Louise Snyder’s novel of ideas explores the tension that ensues after a series of home invasions in Oak Park. It follows a family as racial and class tensions threaten to undermine the atmosphere of tolerance and diversity that the Oak Park residents believe they’ve fostered.
— Printers Row Journal editors
Kevin Nance, Shoshana Olidort and Dmitry Samarov contributed.
