The Coast of Chicago: Stories

This is a great book. I lived in Chicago for a number of years and I am a catholic born in Eastern Europe so I can definitely relate to parts of what Dybek describes in this book. Stuart Dybek grew up in the South Side of Chicago. At the time, his neighborhood was an ethnic neighborhood full of poles, ukranians, czechs, etc. Most of the characters in the book still have customs coming from the old country, inherited prejudices, church going rituals, love for music, etc.Most of the stories have a life of their own yet some of the smaller ones are introduced just to create themes or suggest feelings that will trigger in other stories. For example baseball is a recurring theme in this book, from the neighborhood teams, to watching games, to the White Sox winning the '59 AL pennant. It is a great experience to live in a town that wins a pennant and one of the short stories describes how the Go Go Sox of '59 won the AL pennant on Gerry Staley's sinker and Aparicio and Big Klu's 6-3 double play. The whole town was affected by the air-raid sirens that were sounded to celebrate but so were the characters in one of the short stories.The same neighborhoods have later changed. One of the characters returns after a while and finds the same bars with the same names only that his neighborhood is Mexican now with many of the store names in Spanish and even the church bells don't seem to agree on the right time.There is no experience that compares to making the journey from the numbered streets of the South Side to the North Side of Chicago. This journey is described multiple times in the book (driving on Lake Shore Drive, riding the El train, switching buses). In the last short story in the book, the author describes such a journey made by two lovers riding the El train. The experience is surreal but one understands that living in Chicago and riding the El, you only need to glance outside the window to get a sense of where you are. The experience transcends time, "it was as if I were standing on that platform, with my schoolbooks and a smoke, on one of those endlessly accumulated afternoons after school when I stood almost outside of time simply waiting for a train, and I thought how much I’d have loved seeing someone like us streaming by".Stuart Dybek also eventually made this journey in his career, he was born in the South Side of Chicago and is now the distinguished writer in residence at Northwestern University.

love this book. bought this copy to replace another i gave away because i want everyone i know to read it.

I was required to read this book for one of my classes at the college I went to briefly in Chicago and I had never read Stuart Dybek before, but after reading this, I'd like to again. He's a very talented writer and really speaks about Chicago - anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time there or lives there can definitely relate to the stories in this book.

The writing of Dreiser, Wright, Algren, and Bellow depicts Chicago in distinct ways. But if you want a sense of neighborhood life in the 50s and 60s, travel the streets and alleys, recall the bonding of adolescent friends, know the closeness of big families in small apartments, read Dybek's stories. One entitled "Pet Milk" is an extraordinary tale of early adulthood, desire, city love. These stories capture Chicago's ruggedness and tenderness.

I think that "The Coast of Chicago" is superb. The characters are memorable and the stories compelling. It has just the right combination of the gritty realism one expects in a book about Chicago and magical realism that adds to its poignancy. I appreciated the book even more when I saw some of the stories dramatized by The Looking Glass Theater company at the Water Tower. As Pancho says, "I believe there's saints, and miracles happening everywhere, only everybody's afraid to admit it."

Am reading this to get in the mood to visit the Windy City. Most stories could actually be set anywhere, but they're all quite interesting and some very poetic. Dybek has a great command of the language that draws you in and really sets a different tone for each separate story.

If the only story you read is the final one entitled "Pet Milk," that alone is worth the buy. Stuart Dybek has a talent with prose to the point of reaching inside people and tearing their guts out. All the things we want to say, we can't. We don't have the capacity to put it all down on paper, but Dybek does. He puts a little bit of light into all of our lives.

Great condition!

小説を読むことは好きだったのに、今まで正直ほとんど英語で読んでこなかった。最近思う所あって、好きな作家のものを中心に、原書で読むことが増えたが、そんな初心者の私でもダイベックの小説はとても読みやすかった。もともと日本語訳に親しんでいることも大きいが、使われている英語が平易であるので、初心者でもあまり辞書を使わずに読めると思った。平易な英語ではあるが、決して内容がチープというわけではない。ダイベックの詩的な小説世界は日本語訳で読んでも本当に味わい深い印象を持っていたのが、英語で読むとダイベックの息遣いのようなものまで感じられて、より一層作品を深く味わうことができた。もともとこの小説の柴田元幸氏による翻訳の『シカゴ育ち』を繰り返し読んできたが、英語世界で構築されたシカゴと、日本語で構築されたシカゴのあわいを漂いながら、現実に知っているシカゴの記憶と重ねあわせて、自分の中で幾度もシカゴという街の夢を見ているような気分だ。降こめるシカゴの雪のなかを、一緒に歩いているような気分になる、冒頭の「フェアエル」が特にお気に入りで、この章は英語の原文を暗唱してしまったほど。

:)