You Were Never in Chicago
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This “rollicking newspaperman’s memoir” offers a personal tour of Chicago’s cultural history and makes “a strong case for Second City exceptionalism" (The New York Times).
In 1952 the New Yorker published a three-part essay by A. J. Liebling in which he dubbed Chicago the "Second City." From the skyline to garbage collection, nothing escaped Liebling's withering gaze. Among the outraged responses from Chicago residents was one that Liebling described as the apotheosis of such criticism: a postcard that read, simply, "You were never in Chicago."
The dynamic captured in this anecdote has always fascinated Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. Now, in You Were Never in Chicago, Steinberg weaves his own story as a young outsider making his way into the inner circles of Chicago journalism with a nuanced portrait of the city that would surprise even lifelong residents.
Steinberg takes readers through Chicago's vanishing industrial past, exploring the city from the skybridge between the towers of the Wrigley Building, to the vast Deep Tunnel system below the streets. He deftly explains the city's complex web of political favoritism and carefully profiles the characters he meets along the way, from greats of jazz and journalism to small-business owners just getting by. Throughout, Steinberg never loses the curiosity and close observation of an outsider, while thoughtfully considering how this perspective has shaped the city, and what it really means to belong.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sixty years ago in a now-famous New Yorker article, A.J. Liebling cast a withering gaze on Chicago calling it the "Second City." One Chicagoan responded to his jabs with a postcard that read, "You were in never in Chicago." Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steinberg, who came to Chicago from Ohio to attend Northwestern University, offers his own response in this sometimes entertaining but often tedious memoir that celebrates the city. Along the way, we meet a network of Chicago denizens, such as Maria Pappas, the Cook County treasurer, who form a web of relationships and interactions, loyalties and grudges, that make the city such a close-knit village but which also contribute to Chicago's reputation for corruption and cronyism. Weaving episodes from his own life and career, Steinberg creates a tapestry of Chicago life. He points out that "Chicago is a big place ; the finer details emerge one by one." These details shift across race and class lines, gaining "emotional nuances." In the end, Steinberg observes that everyone in his or her own particular way thinks of "my as the true Chicago."
