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Chicago: A Novel
Chicago: A Novel
Chicago: A Novel
Ebook335 pages5 hours

Chicago: A Novel

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

A big-shouldered, big-trouble thriller set in mobbed-up 1920s Chicago—a city where some people knew too much, and where everyone should have known better—by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Untouchables and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross.

Mike Hodge—veteran of the Great War, big shot of the Chicago Tribune, medium fry—probably shouldn’t have fallen in love with Annie Walsh. Then, again, maybe the man who killed Annie Walsh have known better than to trifle with Mike Hodge.

In Chicago, David Mamet has created a bracing, kaleidoscopic page-turner that roars through the Windy City’s underground on its way to a thunderclap of a conclusion. Here is not only his first novel in more than two decades, but the book he has been building to for his whole career. Mixing some of his most brilliant fictional creations with actual figures of the era, suffused with trademark "Mamet Speak," richness of voice, pace, and brio, and exploring—as no other writer can—questions of honor, deceit, revenge, and devotion, Chicago is that rarest of literary creations: a book that combines spectacular elegance of craft with a kinetic wallop as fierce as the February wind gusting off Lake Michigan.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateFeb 27, 2018
ISBN9780062797216
Author

David Mamet

David Mamet is one of the foremost American playwrights. He has won a Pulitzer prize and received Tony nominations for his plays, Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. His screenwriting credits include The Verdict and The Untouchables.

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Reviews for Chicago

Rating: 3.304347714782609 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

115 ratings4 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Chicago excels when the characters fume, debate, shout, scheme, and fight. The novel is brilliant when characters soliloquize their guilt about leaving Egypt for the Midwestern United States. Unfortunately, the book fails on too many other fronts to truly be a successful novel.Chicago is unrecognizable as the story's setting. Though Aswany begins the novel with a brief, but dramatic sweep of Chicago's history, the rest of the story might as well be anywhere. Actually, the story feels like it is set in some alternate universe which is not quite the United States but strangely similar; the story simply feels like Aswany doesn't *get* the United States. This is most pronounced when he explores Racism (with a capital R) while following Carol, the novel's only black character. Ultimately, the novel feels rootless, which is so strange as the novel is all about rootings and uprootings.For all of its faults, this book leaves me curious about Aswany. Even though I didn't love Chicago, I look forward to reading more by him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book as noted is not about Chicago but rather about Egypt.It is unsparing in its criticism of the modern dictatorship and the corrupt " police " state with its dependence on American aid and goodwill.The hypocrisy of muslim devoutness is contrasted well with the support religion provides for the faithful.The undecurrents of Egyptian sectarian strife are touched upon and the author's disenchantment with capitalism is portayed against a background of "60s left-wing idealism --- the noblest charecter is an American vietnam era idealist.I felt the exploration of the Egyptian psyche and the muslim subjugation of women was handled very well.This novel was written 4 years before the fall of Hosni Moubarak and has many similarities in narrative with Aswani's first important work the " Yakobian Building".The book will be very much appreciated by Egyptian immigrants to the US.VM
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked this novel in the end, but I wasn't sure at first if I would. The characters do not at first appear to be connected, and it is at first difficult to imagine where the novel is going. What's great about it is that the novel is written and structured so that you want to keep reading and find out what happens to them- after the first half of the book. I put it down for nearly a week about a third of the way through. This novel is much more political than I anticipated, and the characters are almost universally unlikeable. To be fair, everyone has an ugly side, and not everyone reacts to stress and pressure with grace. That said, I also found the American characters strange. They seemed flat, not like real people- it was something about the dialog that made them seem like cardboard cut-outs and not real people. They don't talk like any of the Americans I know. It's about Egypt more than Chicago, really. I liked the novel in the end, but only after I thought about it for a day and a half.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I have to say I really dislike Alaa al-Aswany's writing. In both Chicago and The Yacoubian Building his characters are simplistic archetypes. One senses that he is trying to imitate the style of Naguib Mahfouz but Mahfouz left us with so much material that why does anyone need to try to replicate his work. Al-Aswany's recent comments giving the Egyptian military carte blanche to kill opposition protesters in the street makes me wish he would retire from writing and public life entirely.

Book preview

Chicago - David Mamet

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