Chicago: City on the Make: Sixtieth Anniversary Edition

Clever take on the Windy City.

This is a magnificent prose poem-eulogy even- by Nelson Algren to his city. He takes you through all the characters and diverse cultures and corruptions that ingrained the Chicago he grew up in and are either being erased from the image the commercial big guns want to promote,or have just fallen by the wayside. There's a lot of visceral anger coming through in this book, and it is significant that Algren wrote it during the odious McCarthy anti Communist witch trails that was stiffling the freedoms of speech Algren so valued (he dumped his communist party interests as soon as the lack of free thought became obvious to him-now 'free' society was doing the same!)and distorting and promoting a mythical America that just didn't exist outside of a Disney film! The afterword and annotations in the 50th anniversary edition are vital to get the maximum from this book. Algren re articulates what his views are, and -to my mind-makes a postumous apology to his friend Richard Wright who he slammed for leaving Chicago for Paris and 'not sticking it out'. What could one black man who had suffered a life time of rejection and abuse do but say he'd had enough. I liked Algren the better for this acknowledgement.

Algren poetically describes how he sees Chicago; as a city that was and is a home for "hustlers" looking to make an easy buck. As the book progresses, he elaborates on what he perceives as the loss of edginess in the city's writers, as well as condemning a number of the other social maladies of the time (the HUAC being foremost among them).

well written and made algren come alive. i have been touting this book all summer to everyone i meet.

Algren's view of Chicago in rich prose. Perfect for anyone who wants the feel as well as the sense of the city.

I had the pleasure of reading Chicago: City on the Make in part, on a hot summer's day sitting in the back of a moving van with the door open, using a cargo strap as a seat belt. Riding along to the next job reading my first Algren made it an afternoon of twists and turns literal and figurative.As others have pointed out, this book is not a novel, novella or story collection, but a prose poem. They say it like that is a bad thing; as if any potential reader is such an idiot that the book should be printed with an I.Q.-based warning label ("Warning: unless you can handle Sartre in the original, this book might make your eyes bleed"). The book is a prose poem but so what? It's one of those rare and sometimes great books that can be read aloud for the language alone and for the most part, Algren makes every word about the cold wind off the river and the deep corruption count. When he is at his best, he makes the place sound positively holy--like something that glows.Chicago: City on the Make was like nothing I had ever read then and it is vastly unlike anything I have read since. I am re-buying it for someone else to read (a Chicago native, in fact) but I'm going to get to peek into it again before I give it to him. Chicago: City on the Make is more than just a book it is an experience, a way of doing things that only top-flight, internationally famous authors have the stones to write anymore.My experience of the book is old, in fact, so old, so that I remember only a few words from a few lines clearly and I am left with two major impressions in memory. The first is that it was a brilliant thing, fully worthy of being called "literature.'The second was that after an amazing job of keeping his prose flying high above what other authors could ever hope for, the thing bogs down in the end. Algren's voice becomes tired, his segues more and more stretched until there's nothing left of the energy you find in the beginning, but you soon find that you can't really blame him. Algren was not up to the task of finishing his amazing slender volume, but you can't blame him for it: it is certain that no one else could have done any part of it at all.

I read this book as part of a class and am so happy that I did. Algren's language is delicious and the book made me smile. Maybe that is because I am a lifelong Chicagoan.

As much praise as this book gets I must say I was extremely disappointed in how bogged down in the 1910-1950 period it is in terms of evaluating Chicago. Beyond that, it only really elucidates the grievances of the Debs faction of striking industrial workers. The plight of blacks in the city gets mentioned but not with the repetitive prominence. Even if it had, this would still be an odd and ultimately pretentious effort to get at what Chicago is, was, and could be. Fortunately can be read quickly and almost as quickly forgotten.