Read An American Summer Love and Death in Chicago Audible Audio Edition Alex Kotlowitz Random House Audio Books
Download As PDF : An American Summer Love and Death in Chicago Audible Audio Edition Alex Kotlowitz Random House Audio Books
From the best-selling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods.
The numbers are staggering Over the past 20 years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community?Â
Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity - and the breaking point - of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America.Â
Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and 20 years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends.
Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.
Read An American Summer Love and Death in Chicago Audible Audio Edition Alex Kotlowitz Random House Audio Books
"Amazing look at the systemic ways that poverty and race intersect."
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An American Summer Love and Death in Chicago Audible Audio Edition Alex Kotlowitz Random House Audio Books Reviews :
An American Summer Love and Death in Chicago Audible Audio Edition Alex Kotlowitz Random House Audio Books Reviews
- This book could have been so much more. What an important and currently pressing topic Alex Kotlowitz chose to write about. The homicide and violent crime rate in Chicago is staggering. Kotlowitz says that in the past 20 years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and roughly 60,000 have been wounded by gunfire. The vast majority of the killings happen in a small space in Chicago--but the violence has been spreading out all over the city. National and regional papers report of the killings daily.
I've read another book by Kotlowitz and have found him to be a very gifted writer. He's an artist with words. He has a very smooth writing style and uses words to paint pictures in a way that few others can. I know little about what's going on in Chicago, so I was excited to learn more--especially through the writing of Kotlowitz. But this book felt flat.
During a summer in Chicago, Kotlowitz chronicles the life of African American male teenagers and some men past their prime previously involved in gang violence. In only a few months, we learn of many gruesome murders and lives ruined by the violence.
Kotlowitz seems to blame the failures of his main characters on the society that they've grown up in. Even when adopted out and moved to the suburbs, Kotlowitz's characters return to a life of crime. It's almost, as if, the main characters in the book are destined to kill others. Robbing people seems to be in their blood and hurting others seems to be the fault of the character's lapse of judgment, society, or something else. But Kotlowitz doesn't seem to rest blame in the murderer or perpetrator himself. The murderer or perpetrator is portrayed as a victim and his family as victims too.
By the way--why aren't women included as characters in this book? Do they not perpetrate the violent crime? If they don't, then why not?
The book is entirely predictable. In fact, it's so predictable that it's absurd. We're meant to see that the murders in jail actually are good people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe that's true. I don't know. But it's hard to believe that every murderer followed in the book has a good heart and is rather blameless. I would have liked to know more about the character's upbringing, their experiences in school, and the rest of their life. Two paragraphs--or even two pages--about any of these topics doesn't suffice.
The violence in Chicago results from complex matters and it would have been nice for Kotlowitz to consider and develop each of the potential causes for the high crime rate. Glossing over the lives of the main characters and their families doesn't serve the topic justice.
Perhaps it's worthwhile to read a few chapters of this book. But if you want to learn more about what's going on in Chicago, I'd suggest reading another source. - As a woman who grew up on the South side of Chicago in public housing this book, though painful is both an important and insightful addition to my life. I’ve lived outside the U.S. for 20 years. While I currently know many who still reside in Chicago I personally feel relieved that I am not among them. I also feel indebted to the author for keeping me and the world in touch, on a visceral level, with the reality that exists beyond our current environment. It is important to read, to feel, to gain insights about the world beyond ourselves - to experience the humanity of those whose lives we better understand through this book.
This is a painful read and as such and incredibly valuable read. I can not live someone else’s experience. I can become more human by beginning my understanding of others experience and I feel required to do so.
I was enormously impacted years ago by, There Are No Children Here. This book will also shape my understanding and sensitivity to the world that formed me - and fortunately released me from a first hand encounter with some of its most formidable pain. - This book makes you think differently about the world and the communities left behind. It's a book that really challenges assumptions and perceptions and keeps surprising the reader with every chapter. There is no journalist quite like Kotlowitz, who can take readers into worlds that feel so far away. In this book, as he does so well in all his writing, you feel like you're pressed against the glass of peoples' lives. It's so intimate. I also love the use of the original writing from the subjects he follows. They come in the form of journals, letters, social media posts, etc. You really hear their voices on these pages. Bravo!
- Amazing look at the systemic ways that poverty and race intersect.
- Amazing book! Gives an insight into the lives of those in Chicago. A perspective not shown on the news.
- From the beginning though the end everything was just right.
- Excellent book on the effects of violence in Chicago. Generally each chapter introduces us to a new person/family touched by violence (either losing a family member to violence or having a family member commit violence or committing violence themselves and trying to come to terms with what they've done) though there are a few people who have several chapters devoted to their stories (again dealing with violence that they've witnessed, experienced, or committed).
Kotlowitz writes with powerful prose, really showing the humanity of these people and the very challenging lives they lead and often horrific experiences they, well, experiences. Some people might say Kotlowitz is making excuses for bad behavior, but I think he is really showing the societal factors that surround people. So many children randomly killed, so many children/young people killing or hurting others, so many petty squabbles escalating into death. Kotlowitz shows how people struggle with being defined or stereotyped as gangbangers or drug dealers--the assumptions mothers deal with when a child is killed that "he must have been in a gang or dealing drugs." Sometimes they were, sometimes not. Either way the person gone was still a person.
Though some of the people profiled make it, there aren't many happy endings in the book. Some seem promising. Some are very sad. It just felt like a gut punch to me, reading about the things people live with and through. I can't imagine having the strength to endure. Just an excellent book. It would be hard to read this and still dismiss Chicago's violence as just faceless black on black crime (or whatever talking point it is today) that "those people" need to deal with (or as a justification to treat them all like animals and criminals.) These are people struggling with poverty, economic depression in their neighborhoods, mass incarceration, death, and still most manage to keep on living, despite the loss and sadness. I can't recommend it enough.
