By Diane Wagner, Class of 2005
Several times I put down the book I was reading and thought: When did I write this? Then, realizing I hadn’t written it at all, resumed reading. So strongly did this book resonate with me, so clearly did I recognize the narrator’s jaunts about town, discovering its offerings—Greek food, blues joints, and skyscrapers among many others—that it felt I might have written it myself from a series of journal entries.
The unnamed narrator has just graduated from Notre Dame University and taken his first job in downtown Chicago. He finds lodging in a nondescript apartment building in the Lakeview neighborhood, just as I had when I first returned to Chicago in 1979. The tenants, including a whimsical dog named Edward who revels in alewives and loves the writings of Abraham Lincoln, are lovingly portrayed, as is the building. Exploring the basement storage area, the narrator finds a huge stuffed horse and a make-shift kitchen where every Saturday Mrs. Manfredi makes empanadas and the usual jumble of lamps and boxes and trunks. I know that basement!
As I know the basketball court where our narrator scrimmages with a couple of local gang members and the dog beach and the sound of fog horns drifting in from the lake and the geometry of the downtown buildings.
There were so very many things that were riveting and amazing about Chicago…the deep sad joyous thrum of the blues…the vast muscle of the lake, the mountainous snowfall, the cheerful rough rude immediacy of the bustle and thunder of the city at full cry, the latticework of the elevated train tracks, the deep happy mania of Bears fans…the sheer geometry of the city, its squares and rectangles, its vaulted perpendicularity, its congested arithmetic…
If this paragraph at all appeals to you, consider reading Brian Doyle’s novel titled CHICAGO. And the next time you’re chatting with someone in the volunteer library, ask what they’re reading. My thanks to Emily Clott for recommending this charming book.