Description
Book SynopsisA collection of coming-of-age stories that reflect the diversity of the city and its metropolitan area. The book memorably explores culture, social identity, and personal growth through the eyes of Chicagoans, affirming that we each hold the ability to shape the places in which we live and write and read as much as those places shape us.
Trade Review“A literary guide to the soul of this great, burly place.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, from the foreword
“An entertaining and touching tumble of sexual awakenings, identity quests, dangerous liaisons, early sorrows, boundary crossings, and 16-inch softball. There’s a different Chicago in each piece—the city serves as witness, backdrop, companion, solace. This ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse collection takes us to a snowy Chicago alley, a suburban living room, Catholic school, playgrounds and fields, buses and subways, the Art Institute, and a gas station in its explorations of the private and dramatic world of childhood and adolescence. This accomplished collection reminds us that childhood is never safe, but it is also wondrous and raw.” —S.L. Wisenberg, author of
The Adventures of Cancer BitchTable of Contents
- Foreword
- Luis Alberto Urrea
Introduction
- Roxanne Pilat, David Schaafsma, Lauren DeJulio Bell
- 1. Chicago
- Daiva Markelis
- 2. Between Boys
- Anne Calcagno
- 3. Running Girl
- Nnedi Okorafor
- 4. Vigil
- Stuart Dybek
- 5.All-American Boy
- David Mura
- 6. Excerpt from Love, Hate and Other Filters
Samira Ahmed
- 7. Planet Rock
- Dhana-Marie Branton
- 8. White Power
- Christian Picciolini
- 9. Dillinger
- Jessie Ann Foley
- 10. Mothman
- Emil Ferris
- 11. Excerpt fromI Am Not Your PerfectMexican Daughter
- Erika SÁnchez
12. Detention
- James McManus
- 13. The Untouchables
- Maxine Chernoff
- 14. Discovering My Femininity in Menswear
M Shelly Conner
- 15. Death of a Right Fielder
- Stuart Dybek
- 16. My Mother’s Mexico
- Ana Castillo
- 17. My Father’s Pillowtalk
- Charles Johnson
- 18. The Power and Limitations of Victim-Impact Statements
- Rebecca Makkai
- 19. Grave News
- Saja Elshareif
- 20. During the Reign of Vytautis the Great
- Daiva Markelis
- 21. Children of the Fifty-Sixers: Growing Up in Hungarian Chicago
- Rebecca Makkai
- 22. Growing Up in Chicago
- Tony Romano
- 23. The View From the South Side, 1970
- George Saunders
- Biographies
- Acknowledgments
- Credits
