An American Summer
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An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz
2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNERFrom the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods.
The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends.
Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.
Alex Kotlowitz is the author of the national blockbuster There Are No Children Here, which was named one of the 150 most important novels of the twentieth century by the New York Public Library. The Other Side of the River, his second book, won the Heartland Award for Nonfiction. He won an Emmy and a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary for his documentary film The Interrupters. Two Peabody honors, two duPont-Columbia University awards, and a George Polk Award have been given to Kotlowitz's writing, which has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and on public radio's This American Life. He is a Northwestern University writer-in-residence. Just north of Chicago, Kotlowitz lives with his wife, Maria Woltjen, and their two children, Mattie and Lucas.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780804170918 |
| ISBN 10 | 0804170916 |
| Title | An American Summer |
| Author | Alex Kotlowitz |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2020-03-31 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Prizes | Winner of J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize 2020 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |