Never A City So Real by Alex Kotlowitz
Chicago is a tale of two cities, headlines declare. This narrative has been gaining steam alongside reports of growing economic divisions and diverging outlooks on the future of the city. Yet to keen observers of the Second City, this is nothing new. Those who truly know Chicago know that for decades--even centuries--the city has been defined by duality, possibly since the Great Fire scorched a visible line between the rubble and the saved. For writers like Alex Kotlowitz, the contradictions are what make Chicago. And it is these contradictions that form the heart of Never a City So Real.The book is a tour of the people of Chicago, those who have been Kotlowitz's guide into this city's - and by inference, this country's - heart. Chicago, after all, is America's city. Kotlowitz introduces us to the owner of a West Side soul food restaurant who believes in second chances, a steelworker turned history teacher, the Diego Rivera of the projects, and the lawyers and defendants who populate Chicago's Criminal Courts Building. These empathic, intimate stories chronicle the city's soul, its lifeblood.
This new edition features a new afterword from the author, which examines the state of the city today as seen from the double-paned windows of a pawnshop. Ultimately, Never a City So Real is a love letter to Chicago, a place that Kotlowitz describes as a place that can tie me up in knots but a place that has been my muse, my friend, my joy.
ALEX KOTLOWITZ is perhaps best known for his national bestseller, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. Alex's nonfiction stories, which one critic wrote inform the heart, have appeared in print, radio and film. A former staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, Alex has long been a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and public radio's This American Life. His stories, which one reviewer wrote inform the heart, have also appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Rolling Stone, The Chicago Tribune, Slate and The Washington Post, as well as on PBS (Frontline, the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and Media Matters) and on NPR's All Things Considered and Morning Edition. He's been honored with some of journalism's major prizes: a George Foster Peabody Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the George Polk Award and twice a Columbia duPont Award.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781400046218 |
| ISBN 10 | 1400046211 |
| Title | Never A City So Real |
| Author | Alex Kotlowitz |
| Series | Crown Journeys Ser |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2004-07-06 |
| Number of pages | 160 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |