Friday, November 02, 2018

Six essential Chicago books

Eve L. Ewing is assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. She is the author of Electric Arches, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Washington Post, and many other venues. She was born in Chicago, where she still lives.

Ewing's new book is Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side.

One of six essential Chicago books she tagged at Publishers Weekly:
The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek

Much like [Gwendolyn] Brooks, Dybek brilliantly illustrates the quotidian struggles of average people, elevating them to the level of myth or epic even as he writes plainly. The short stories in this collection reflect Dybek’s experience as a member of the Eastern European diasporic wave that found a place in Chicago and shaped so much of its geography, cultural milieu, and politic in the twentieth century.
Read about another entry on the list.

See: Andrew Rosenheim's top ten books about Chicago.

--Marshal Zeringue