Book review: “Venus on the Half-Shell” by Philip Jose Farmer
Philip Jose Farmer’s 1975 novel Venus on the Half-Shell was based on a gimmick, so it’s not surprising that it’s filled with gimmicks, most of which, to my mind, seem [...]
Book review: “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls before Swine” by Kurt Vonnegut
The Hebrew Bible is big on prophets and big on sin. There are four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. And a dozen minor prophets who wrote shorter books [...]
Essay: You’re wrong, Pope Francis, about gay couples
This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 3.15.21. Well, Pope Francis, I disagree. I respect much of what you’ve done in the papacy, Holy Father, but this statement [...]
Book review: “The Little Black Dress” by Andre Leon Talley with photographs by Adam Kuehl
I’m a stranger here myself. The Little Black Dress by Andre Leon Talley with photographs by Adam Kuehl is the elegant and lavish catalogue of an exhibition at the Savannah [...]
Book review: “The Homesman” by Glendon Swarthout
Midway through Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel, The Homesman, Mary Bee Cuddy wakes up and, from her bedroll by the frame wagon, hears the good-for-nothing cull Briggs, the claim-jumper she saved [...]
Book review: “City of Lake and Prairie: Chicago’s Environmental History,” edited by Kathleen A. Brosnan, Ann Durkin Keating and William C. Barnett
A little more than a century ago, in one of the world’s largest cities, Chicagoans lived a lot closer to nature than we do today — as in closer to [...]
Book review: “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit” by Elmore Leonard
I can’t think of another Elmore Leonard book that has a subtitle like his 1980 City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. That’s also a pretty portentous, if not to say [...]
Book review: “A Complicated Kindness” by Miriam Toews
Sixteen-year-old Nomi opens her story by telling the reader that she lives with her father, Ray Nickel, in “that low brick bungalow” out on Highway 12. Her audience is someone [...]
Essay: The Sights and Sounds of Baseball, Fans Optional
Some guy on ESPN the other day was complaining again about men who bring a mitt to Major League Baseball games, and I just don’t get it. Maybe that’s because [...]
Book review: “Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue” by James Purdy
For a few days, I took an unexpected, disconcerting and enthrallingly odd voyage through an unusual life and a mythic Chicago. It began when I was reading a book about [...]