jheinemann287's review
4.0
I didn't grow up in Chicago, but I did choose it as my home and create a whole life within it. Basically, I'm a stan. And this collection of essays and vignettes indulges Chicago stans in the best ways. You've seen and remember the neighborhoods and architecture these characters move through. As an English teacher, I found myself thinking about Nick's longing for the midwest at the end of Gatsby while reading the introduction:
I read this collection with the hope that I could use it as a text for my high school freshman English classes since the thematic focus of the year centers on identity and "coming-of-age." Unfortunately, I wanted this to work for my classes more than it actually would. Our first semester curriculum teaches narrative elements: characterization, conflict, plot, theme, etc. The pieces collected here are beautiful and evocative, but many of them are challenging reads, and most are slice-of-life vignettes rather than fully developed narratives with turning points and resolutions. They 100% could be used to teach setting (sensory details), though. I mean, that's what they're all about: a place and a time. Here and now. I could also see this collection being a compelling core or supplemental text in a Chicago literature/history course, in a creative writing course, or in a unit about memoir or personal narratives/statements.
My favorites were "Vigil" by Stuart Dybek, "Planet Rock" by Dhana-Marie Branton, "Dillinger" by Jessie Ann Foley, the excerpt from I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez, "Discovering My Femininity in Menswear" by M Shelley Conner, "The Power and Limitations of Victim-Impact Statements" by Rebecca Makkai (CW: sexual assault), and (of course) "The View from the South Side, 1970" by George Saunders.
And just because I read with this framing in mind, I'll also note that the pieces that work best as complete narratives are "Vigil" by Stuart Dybek, "Dillinger" by Jessie Ann Foley, "Running Girl" by Nnedi Okorafor (CW: racism), and "Detention" by James McManus (CW: sexism).
Oh, and don't let the digital image of the cover fool you. It's actually very cool. The museum looks sketched on notebook paper and it has a matte finish.
Growing up in Chicago offers chance after chance to come to terms with questions of identity, beginning with the city's sheer size and geographic complexity, which could easily make a person feel small, unnoticed, irrelevant. From afar, its muscular skyline -- much of it rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire, and later expanded on landfill that pushed the original shoreline out into the lake -- conveys a certain Midwest practicality, coupled with a seeming determination to conquer the impossible. This is a city that had the fortitude to rebuild after the fire, the imagination to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. The reach of its skyline today frames the expanse of Lake Michigan, stretching north to south, with tall and taller buildings rising into the clouds, like arms of concrete and steel, limestone and granite, as if to say "We are here!" (xvi)I mean, right? What an absolute celebration.
I read this collection with the hope that I could use it as a text for my high school freshman English classes since the thematic focus of the year centers on identity and "coming-of-age." Unfortunately, I wanted this to work for my classes more than it actually would. Our first semester curriculum teaches narrative elements: characterization, conflict, plot, theme, etc. The pieces collected here are beautiful and evocative, but many of them are challenging reads, and most are slice-of-life vignettes rather than fully developed narratives with turning points and resolutions. They 100% could be used to teach setting (sensory details), though. I mean, that's what they're all about: a place and a time. Here and now. I could also see this collection being a compelling core or supplemental text in a Chicago literature/history course, in a creative writing course, or in a unit about memoir or personal narratives/statements.
My favorites were "Vigil" by Stuart Dybek, "Planet Rock" by Dhana-Marie Branton, "Dillinger" by Jessie Ann Foley, the excerpt from I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez, "Discovering My Femininity in Menswear" by M Shelley Conner, "The Power and Limitations of Victim-Impact Statements" by Rebecca Makkai (CW: sexual assault), and (of course) "The View from the South Side, 1970" by George Saunders.
And just because I read with this framing in mind, I'll also note that the pieces that work best as complete narratives are "Vigil" by Stuart Dybek, "Dillinger" by Jessie Ann Foley, "Running Girl" by Nnedi Okorafor (CW: racism), and "Detention" by James McManus (CW: sexism).
Oh, and don't let the digital image of the cover fool you. It's actually very cool. The museum looks sketched on notebook paper and it has a matte finish.
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