Sacred City by Theodore Van Alst
Nelson Algren and Studs Terkel set the bar high for Chicago as both a place and character in writing. That lineage continues with Chicago Boys—Working Class Readings by Martin Billheimer (author of Mother Chicago) and Theodore Van Alst (author of Sacred Smokes and Sacred City); the event will take place at Lion’s Tooth bookshop 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Growing up in a gang can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story reads the shorthand for Theodore Van Alst’s Sacred Smokes. The follow up Sacred City, explores the options available to an “intelligent smart-assed young man who was born poor and grew up in a gang.” Recalling great American writer and juvenile delinquent Eddie Bunker, Van Last’s milieu would seem to have plenty ingredients to turn his characters into a modern-day version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.
Mother Chicago by Martin Billheimer
In the lineage of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Martin Billheimer’s Mother Chicago examines the city’s underclasses via redlining, property speculation, racism and collateralized debt. Subtitled Truant Dreams and Specters Over the Gilded Age, Billheimer digs into the complicated history of the city of the big shoulders. Viewing the one-time crossroads of America, the author takes a deep dive into his hometown’s history that often has been written out of chamber of commerce messaging.
More info here: lionstoothmke.com/events.html.
