Chicago: A Novel
By David Mamet
3.5/5
()
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.
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.
Read more from David Mamet
Glengarry Glen Ross Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Woods, Lakeboat, Edmond: Three Plays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Penitent (TCG Edition) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Theatre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Religion: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thunder Without Rain: A Memoir with Dangerous Game, God's Cattle, The African Buffalo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth of the Northeast Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicago Boxing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Chicago
Related ebooks
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Religion: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5South of the Northeast Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Penitent (TCG Edition) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Damon Runyon Favorites Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Grifters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive European Plays: Nestroy, Schnitzler, Molnár, Havel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSwimming to Cambodia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Play Goes On: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hapgood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnderstanding David Mamet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncle Vanya Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Moth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parade's End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Marry? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChristopher Durang Explains It All for You: 6 Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inspector Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hallway Trilogy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neil Simon's Memoirs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hot Rock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nobody's Perfect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Theatre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hedda Gabler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rock 'n' Roll: A New Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cherry Orchard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRight You Are, If You Think You Are Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invention of Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Smell of Success: And Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Thrillers For You
Hidden Pictures: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rock Paper Scissors: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kind Worth Killing: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl Who Was Taken: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Long Walk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Needful Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terminal List: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Family Upstairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rose Code: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Golden Spoon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Best Friend's Exorcism: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Chicago
115 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chicago 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 stars4/5This 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 stars3/5I 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 stars2/5I 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.