ghost of miles Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 I'm planning on finally getting around to Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March this summer and wondered if other posters might have further suggestions for novels set in or around Chicago. I went on quite an Algren kick a few years ago and read The Man With The Golden Arm, as well as his excellent non-fiction Chicago: City On The Make... I'm also interested in Sam Ross' Windy City (anybody here ever read that? Larry? Moms?) and John Evans/Howard Browne's Halo In Brass, which I picked up years ago but have yet to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Either way, try the great Chicago novelist, John Litweiler. Sure, he writes jazz books of impeccable perspicacity, but his novels are just damn joyful to read, perhaps moreso because they're not burdened with the problem of being about real people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnblitweiler Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Bless you, Jim. Mojo Snake Minuet takes place entirely in Chicago. Augie March takes place in other places besides Chicago. Native Son by Richard Wright is wholly a Chicago novel, as is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Among more recent writers, Leon Forrest's novels are about Black Chicagoans. I suspect his last, posthumous novel, Divine Days, was published before he lived long enough to complete a final take - it is full of tons of wonderful invention, but it is 1100 pages long and has lots of repetitions. He'd felt fortunate that Toni Morrison of Random House had been his first book editor, and Divine Days needed an editor. All 3 of Howard Browne's Halo novels are fine choices, and his 4th Paul Pine novel, Taste Of Ashes, is my favorite - but it half takes place in suburbs. For thrillers, check out the north side Chicago atmosphere of Fredrick Brown's Ed and Am novels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsMobley Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) I'm planning on finally getting around to Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March this summer and wondered if other posters might have further suggestions for novels set in or around Chicago. I went on quite an Algren kick a few years ago and read The Man With The Golden Arm, as well as his excellent non-fiction Chicago: City On The Make... I'm also interested in Sam Ross' Windy City (anybody here ever read that? Larry? Moms?) and John Evans/Howard Browne's Halo In Brass, which I picked up years ago but have yet to read. Respectfully, except for "Augie March," maybe, in parts, Bellow is insufferable and not worth yr time (unless you're already there). Uber-WASP William Gaddis a much funnier, capacious comic "Jewish" writer too. "Augie" at least has verve (if not David Stone Martin, but kinda Oscar Peterson-like, actually, when inspiration flags) & was of interest to superior others... the correct answer is... Theodore Dreiser The Titan Theodore Dreiser The Titan Theodore Dreiser The Titan it's not quite as great for Chi as Dreiser The Financier is for Philly (the Titan is continuation of that story) & American lit generally but still a masterpiece; the Chicago parts and the rest of Sister Carrie also essential if you've not (re-) read recently. If anyone cares to patronize Dreiser, Geoffrey O'Brien's piece on An American Tragedy is useful antidote-- http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_03/obrien.html AAT being, among numerous other things, greatest of all possible (white) crime fiction, every half- (& often less) ass "noir" or "hardboiled" this/that I myself have sometimes indulged laughably callow by comparison. The movie's lousy btw tho' Sergei Eisenstein's unproduced treatment of same is itself pretty amazing. I'm forgetting something non-Dreiser too, lemme ponder... Available audibooks for Dreiser mostly excellent btw if you indulge or want to try. *** having pondered: Studs Lonigan maybe more "important" than "great" but eh-- or feh!-- read at least the first volume, it was major totem to x # young writers 1930s-1950s... Frank Norris The Pit also though I'd recommend other Norris first and Dreiser before that though McTeague ---> Sister Carrie a hot combo if you wanna recreate early 20th c. habits. You well know the Stroheim "Greed" story already I presume. John L's answer swell & more embracing than mine, wish there was more, better non-Irish ethnic, black. modernist Chicago novels etc but... maybe someone else will make case for Algren? i'm (at least) agnostic myself but never heard reason to be otherwise. Edited May 21, 2015 by MomsMobley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Bless you, Jim. Mojo Snake Minuet takes place entirely in Chicago. Augie March takes place in other places besides Chicago. Native Son by Richard Wright is wholly a Chicago novel, as is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Among more recent writers, Leon Forrest's novels are about Black Chicagoans. I suspect his last, posthumous novel, Divine Days, was published before he lived long enough to complete a final take - it is full of tons of wonderful invention, but it is 1100 pages long and has lots of repetitions. He'd felt fortunate that Toni Morrison of Random House had been his first book editor, and Divine Days needed an editor. All 3 of Howard Browne's Halo novels are fine choices, and his 4th Paul Pine novel, Taste Of Ashes, is my favorite - but it half takes place in suburbs. For thrillers, check out the north side Chicago atmosphere of Fredrick Brown's Ed and Am novels. I don't mean to nitpick, but Divine Days came out in 1992 and Forrest died in 1997. I do agree it is in dire need of editing down. Forrest was all but finished with Meteor in the Madhouse when he died and that came out in 2001. That's sort of a novel composed of novellas -- and I believe set in Chicago. There is a quirky novel about someone trying to blow up the Harold Washington Library -- Instant Karma by Mark Swartz. I also have a soft spot for Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago by James Conrad, though part of it takes place in Nevada. Finally, if you are open to short story collections set in Chicago, I would highly recommend Stuart Dybek's I Sailed with Magellan and especially The Coast of Chicago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Wood Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) Someone else's opinion: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/June-2010/Best-Chicago-Novels-Books/ From this list "The Man with the Golden Arm" and "Native Son" stand out from my own reading. Edited May 21, 2015 by jazzbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 For the feel of Chicago, nothing in my experience beats the novels of taxi driver Jack Clark, especially "Nobody's Angel." http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Clark/e/B001JRX0B4/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0#_=_ I see from the above that there are some I've missed; got to catch up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted May 21, 2015 Report Share Posted May 21, 2015 In this past weekend's WSJ, just coincidentally enough, Zachary Leader opined on his 5 favorite Chicago novels: WSJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnblitweiler Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 ejp, thanks for the correction. And Larry is absolutely right about Jack Clark's "Nobody's Angel?" and his other writing about recent Chicago times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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