An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago
2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER
From 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.
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An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz
283 pages
What’s it about?
Alex Kotlowtiz is the author of There Are No Children Here about children living in public housing in the city of Chicago in the 1990's. He now turns his attention to one summer in the city of Chicago- the summer of 2013. He chronicles the violence that we read so much about in this city. We hear the stories of perpetrators and victims alike. Mr. Kotlowitz shares the stories of those involved in an effort to make us understand the horror of what is happening. How this violence is shaping those who it surrounds.
What did it make me think about?
How is this the reality for so many people in America?
Should I read it?
This book sheds light on the violence and how it affects the residents of Chicago. This book does not offer solutions. However, if we can at least begin to see some of ourselves in the victims and the perpetrators maybe we will find a way forward.
Quote-
"In Chicago, the wealthy and the well-heeled die headline deaths and the poor and the rambling die in silence. This is a book, I suppose, about that silence- and the screams and howling and prayers and longing that it hides. Over lunch the day, Pharaoh told me, 'There's a lot of stuff I want to forget.' This book is written with the hope that we won't."
If you liked this try-
Hold, Love, Strong by Matthew Goodman
My Brother Moochie by Issac J. Bailey
Ghettoside A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
Fire Shut up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow
An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz
283 pages
What’s it about?
Alex Kotlowtiz is the author of There Are No Children Here about children living in public housing in the city of Chicago in the 1990's. He now turns his attention to one summer in the city of Chicago- the summer of 2013. He chronicles the violence that we read so much about in this city. We hear the stories of perpetrators and victims alike. Mr. Kotlowitz shares the stories of those involved in an effort to make us understand the horror of what is happening. How this violence is shaping those who it surrounds.
What did it make me think about?
How is this the reality for so many people in America?
Should I read it?
This book sheds light on the violence and how it affects the residents of Chicago. This book does not offer solutions. However, if we can at least begin to see some of ourselves in the victims and the perpetrators maybe we will find a way forward.
Quote-
"In Chicago, the wealthy and the well-heeled die headline deaths and the poor and the rambling die in silence. This is a book, I suppose, about that silence- and the screams and howling and prayers and longing that it hides. Over lunch the day, Pharaoh told me, 'There's a lot of stuff I want to forget.' This book is written with the hope that we won't."
If you liked this try-
Hold, Love, Strong by Matthew Goodman
My Brother Moochie by Issac J. Bailey
Ghettoside A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
Fire Shut up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow