For Chicago books and authors, 2020 anything but slow
This might sound humbug-y for the holidays, but you know what Iwant for Christmas? At least aweek where I am not reading a new book thatwas written by a Chicago author or a former Chicagoan; I don’t evenwant to read a new book about Chicago, the state of Illinois or, just to be safe, Iowa, Michigan and Indiana. Iwant a short vacation from Chicago-centric books because, well, bad as 2020 got, the year was awatershed for Chicago writers. Thewealth of excellent new titles from local writers became so overwhelming, Iwent to sleep dreaming of “Hood Feminism” andwoke up in “Reaganland.”
Here’s a refresher, likely incomplete and in no particular order:
Hyde Park’s MikkiKendall exposed the blind spots of mainstream feminism in her elegant
“Hood Feminism: Notes From theWomen That aMovement Forgot.”
Former Chicagoan Isabel Wilkerson delivered another smart-thinking book on the history of race and class with the Oprah-certified “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”
Edgewater’s Rick Perlstein closed out his two-decade-long project, a sweeping, readable history of contemporary conservatism, with the bestseller
“Reaganland.”
FormerU.S. Poet Laureate and Northwestern professorNatasha
Trethewey left us in devastated awe with “Memorial Drive,” her memoir about mother’s murder by her stepfather.
“Having and BeingHad,” the latest excellent book of essays fromEula Biss, was a Pandora’s box of uneasy questions and anxieties unleashed after buying a house in Evanston.
“How toMake a Slave (and Other Essays)” by South Side native JeraldWalkerwas one of the year’s smartest sleepers, an often hilarious roundup of stories about the obliviousness of white liberals, race and restaurant seating and the writer’s own mentor.
A lot of writers spend their entire careers coming to grips identity, but the talentedWest Pullman nativeNateMarshall, with his terrifically entertaining poetry collection “FINNA,” made everyone in America who is also namedNateMarshall part of that identity.
PoetRosannaWarren delivered not just anotherwell-liked collection, “So Forth,” she followed a few months later with the biography “Max Jacob: ALife in Art And Letters.”
Wilco’s JeffTweedy taught us
“HowtoWrite One Song,” reminding us that creativity defines humanity. It seems he’s taught his son this lessonwell, as
SpencerTweedy released his own book, “Mirror Sound: The People and Processes Behind Self-RecordedMusic.”
“Stateway’s Garden,” the towering debut byKenwood’s
Jasmon Drain, is a series of interlocking narratives set at the nowdemolished housing project. It’s one of the year’s best.
Edmund White, the pioneering gay author (and Evanston native), turned 80 in January, then published his latest novel, “A Saint FromTexas,” his umpteenthwork of fiction.
In “Monogamy,” anovelby Chicago native Sue Miller, a grieving widow’s life is upended when she learns of her late husband’s infidelity.
MariselVera told the Tribune that she didn’t see her family represented in literature when she was growing up inHumboldt Park, so shewrote a historical novel about Puerto Rican migrants: “TheTaste of Sugar.”
In her latest novel, “Cher Ami andMajor Whittlesey,” Tribune contributor KathleenRooney channeled a pigeon and a soldier to relate an affectingWorldWar I tale.
“The LostBook ofAdana Moreau,” the debut of Chicagoan
Michael Zapata, introduced us to a new voice whomoves seamlessly fromthe speculative to the Loop.
AdamLevin, the former Chicago wunderkind, returned with
“Bubble Gum,” another tumble down a conceptual rabbit hole of consumerism and tech.
Catherine Lacey’s third novel,
“Pew,” spun an eerie morality tale set in the American South.
University of Chicago historian
JaneDailey found a freshway to approach racism with “White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America’sRacist History.”
“HisVery Best: Jimmy Carter, ALife,” by the Chicago-born historian Jonathan Alter, was remarkably the first major unauthorized biography of the misunderstood president.
Speaking ofweirdly overlooked history: “Chicago’sGreat Fire: The Destruction andResurrection of an Iconic American City,” byNorthwestern’s Carl Smith, proved to be themost authoritative and revelatory retelling of that seminal Chicago disaster to date.
“Conspiracy to Riot: The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7” delivered the blow-byblowordeal of LeeWeiner, the only Chicago defendant in the famous trial.
Add “The Loop: The ‘L’ Tracks that Shaped and Saved Chicago,” by former Tribune writer PatrickReardon, to the list of thoughtful local histories thatwere finally written.
Former Tribune writer Rob Elder scratched a fascinating, unlikely niche with “Hemingway in Comics,” a study of howcartoonists have treated Oak Park’s favorite Papa.
And yet another former Tribune writer BarbaraMahany helped us see what’s sacred in
“The Stillness ofWinter.”
Chicago essayist ChristieTate had a sorta self-help hit with the self-described memoir “Group: HowOne Therapist andACircle of Strangers SavedMy Life.”
Jason Diamond put his childhood in Chicago suburbs to good use in his essay collection “The Sprawl.”
Comedian Cameron Esposito returned to her roots in thewestern suburbs in her memoir, “Save Yourself.”
Aswe all locked down this spring, ultimate homebody
Samantha Irby cracked us up with her latest essay collection,
“Wow, No ThankYou.”
ElizabethWetmore, a Rogers Park resident byway of Texas, returned often to her hometown of Odessa to gather the details for
“Valentine,” her debut novel, a spring bestseller about fivewomen staring into bigotry, lonesomeness and a glimmer of hope.
In “LastOne Out Shut Off the Lights,” one of the buzziest debut story collections of the year,
Stephanie Soileau dredged the wetlands of her native Southwest Louisiana.
Rachel Swearingen, a School of the Art Institute faculty member, published nine new unsettling stories in “HowtoWalk on Water.”
SamWeller, best known as Ray Bradbury’s biographer, released his own collection of haunting tales, “Dark Black.”
NnediOkorafor continued to redefine science fiction and fantasy— this time for middlegraders with “Ikenga.”
Meanwhile, YA phenom
VeronicaRoth wrote her first novel for adults, “Chosen Ones.”
Oh, yeah: Barack Obama had a little success with “APromised Land,” the first of a two-part presidential memoir. It sold nearly 2 million copies in its first week of release.