Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago - Paperback

by Alex Kotlowitz (Author)

"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."

Front Jacket

The acclaimed author of There Are No Children Here takes us into the heart of Chicago by introducing us to some of the city's most interesting, if not always celebrated, people.
Chicago is one of America's most iconic, historic, and fascinating cities, as well as a major travel destination. For Alex Kotlowitz, an accidental Chicagoan, it is the perfect perch from which to peer into America's heart. It's a place, as one historian has said, of "messy vitalities," a stew of contradictions: coarse yet gentle, idealistic yet restrained, grappling with its promise, alternately sure and unsure of itself.
Chicago, like America, is a kind of refuge for outsiders. It's probably why Alex Kotlowitz found comfort there. He's drawn to people on the outside who are trying to clean up--or at least make sense of--the mess on the inside. Perspective doesn't come easy if you're standing in the center. As with There Are No Children Here, Never a City So Real is not so much a tour of a place as a chronicle of its soul, its lifeblood. It is a tour of the people of Chicago, who have been the author's guides into this city's--and in a broader sense, this country's--heart.

Author Biography

Alex Kotlowitz is the award-winning author of four books, including the national best-seller There Are No Children Here, and, most recently, An American Summer. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, in New York Times Magazine, and on This American Life. He teaches at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.