An American Summer

October 15, 2018

What does it do to the very souls of Chicago residents that over the past two decades, 14,033 people have been killed in the city and another 60,000 or so wounded by gunfire? To find out, Kotlowitz focuses on one summer, capturing the whole through portraits: a man struggling with having killed a rival gang member years ago, for instance, and a social worker whose favorite teenager won't give testimony in the killing of his best friend. From a Peabody, George Polk, Helen B. Bernstein, and Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award winner whose There Are No Children Here was called one of the 150 most important books of the 20th century by the New York Public Library.

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Starred review from January 1, 2019
A chronicle of dreams and gun violence one summer in the city of Chicago.In 1991, Kotlowitz (Journalism/Northwestern Univ.; Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago, 2004, etc.) published the modern classic There Are No Children Here (1991), which told the story of brothers Lafeyette and Pharoah and their experiences in one of Chicago's violent housing projects. Years later, the author received a call in the middle of the night and learned that Pharoah may have been involved in a murder. In his latest powerful sociological exploration, the author masterfully captures the summer of 2013 in neglected Chicago neighborhoods, rendering intimate profiles of residents and the "very public" violence they face every day. One example is Eddie Bocanegra, who killed a rival gang member as a teenager. "Eddie did the unimaginable," writes Kotlowitz. "He took another human life. I suppose for some that might be all you need to know. For others, it may be all you want to know about him. And that's what Eddie fears the most, that this moment is him. That there's no other way to view him." We also meet Anita Stewart, a dedicated social worker who watched one of her favorite students get murdered and another struggle with the aftermath. Heartbreakingly, the author writes early on, "I could tell story after story like this, of mothers who drift on a sea of heartache, without oars and without destination." Throughout, Kotlowitz raises significant issues about the regions where violence has become far too routine. "After the massacre at Newtown and then at Parkland we asked all the right questions," he writes. However, "in Chicago neighborhoods like Englewood or North Lawndale, where in one year they lose twice the number of people killed in Newtown, no one's asking those questions." Kotlowitz offers a narrative that is as messy and complicated and heart-wrenching as life itself: "This is a book, I suppose, about that silence--and the screams and howling and prayers and longing that it hides."A fiercely uncompromising--and unforgettable--portrait.

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