What is the Greatest Ever Chicago Book?

What is the Greatest Ever Chicago Book?

I should say right now that when we started this contest to determine the Greatest Ever ChicagoBook, we knew it would be impossible to find one title that would satisfy every Chicagoan in terms ofboth greatness and Chicago-ness. Books don't work that way. Neither does the experience of a city.Both of these things are entirely subjective, even more than the basketball tournament that inspiredthe shape of this contest. At least in basketball you can say that, in a particular game, one team sunkmore baskets than another. We have no real objective standard like that for books, just ourprejudices and our preferences, and maybe sometimes just a fleeting opinion or annoyance becausewe're reading a cheap edition with tiny print and a binding that's falling apart.

But we decided to go ahead and do it anyway, because we love books and we love Chicago and welove talking and writing and arguing about them.

If we were really imitating the NCAA, we would have started with 64 books. With all the readinginvolved, the tournament would have dragged on for a year, and everyone would have gotten sick ofit, ourselves included. So we decided to go with the Sweet 16. We wanted to make room for not justrealistic fiction and journalism but also fantasy and kids books and YA, and we wanted fair andlogical pairings, so that a book about urban poverty wouldn't be facing off against a novel about amiddle-class marriage. This required--we might as well be honest--some arbitrary decisions, andnaturally, almost as soon as we posted the bracket online, there were complaints. Why no SisterCarrie or Studs Lonigan or Sara Paretsky or The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel?Why Working and not Division Street, and why Chicago: City on the Make instead of The Man Withthe Golden Arm? And why reject all of this quality literature for two goddamned books by MikeRoyko?

We were hoping someone would organize a competing book tourney--the National InvitationTournament to our NCAA tournament--but so far no one has. Or at least we haven't heard about it.

The next problem: How do you determine the winner in a book battle? By appointing a judge, ofcourse, someone who is, in theory, impartial. (Though good readers never are.) We recruited 14writers from around the city, including a few members of the Reader staff, asking them to choose abracket, then read their two books and write an essay about which one they found superior. Thewinners would advance to the next round.

We offered no rules or guidelines for the judges. One of the most fascinating parts of the tournamentwas reading each judge's reasons for determining which book was "better."

Some judges decided Chicago-ness trumped literary greatness. "I believe this is a contest to discoverthe work of literature that best captures Chicago's essence," Jake Austen wrote in what wasprobably the most influential judgment in the tournament (at least in terms of how often it wasdiscussed by other judges), the first-round bout in which he chose Working over Chris Ware'sBuilding Stories, although he considered the latter the superior work. "Thus, the nod of theconstruction helmet has to go to a book that deeply explores perhaps the most important Chicagoarchetype: the man doing an honest day's work in a corrupt town."

Others, like Bill Savage, based their choices on literary merit alone. "The real reason that Devil inthe White City loses to Chicago: City on the Make is more about poetry," Savage wrote in round one."Larson's book does not have a single memorable, much less quotable, line." Two rounds later,though, Tal Rosenberg dismissed City on the Make in favor of The Warmth of Other Suns because ofwhat he considered its overreliance on poetry: "Shouldn't we as citizens and as readers reckon withthe injustices of this city rather than overshadow them with mythology and folklore that exaggeratesthe past?"

Some were genuinely moved by the books they chose, like Marvin Tate, who wrote that The TimeTraveler's Wife's "continuous play with time conjured up anxieties in me that I thought did not existor had, at this point in my life, been resolved," or Peggy Shinner, who, though initially stymied byWorking's lack of a conventional narrative, gradually fell under its spell: "The litany of loss,yearning, bitterness, pride; large and small fulfillments: together they acquired considerable heft."

Some judges chose books for the messages they carried. "Bigger Thomas's violent, criminal, andself-loathing character does more to foster the aggressive racial stereotype of black males than itdoes to offer a symbol of black rage," Lance Williams explained when he rejected Native Son inround one. In round two, Mara Shalhoup favored The Warmth of Other Suns over The Jungle for its"small but genuine sense of hope." Andrea Battleground chose The House on Mango Street for thesame reason. "Chicago," she wrote, "prepares people to become anyone they want to be."

Opinions diverged sharply from round to round. "The stories in Mango Street are small for areason," wrote Wendy McClure in round two. "They're small so that we can understand howperilously close they come to never being told at all." But Brianna Wellen sent it packing in roundthree in favor of Working for a similar reason: "Fair representation of the city requires the voicesand perspectives of many, not one."

A few of the judges acknowledged the patent absurdity of a book tournament, particularly DanetteChavez, who had the most absurd bracket of all: I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It by Mike Roykoversus Boss by . . . Mike Royko. "I can't think of anything more 'Chicago' than a city that gave Daleythe Elder his mayoral terms like so many punches on a 'buy ten, get a free sandwich' card," shewrote in defense of Boss. "Unless it's cops on the take, or cops gone wild on detainees, orappointments in place of elections. (Or how about pitting two Mike Royko books against each otherin a tournament to determine the Greatest Chicago Book?)"

"Royko versus Algren. This is a tough bracket," mourned Jerome Ludwig over his choices, Boss orChicago: City on the Make. "I can hardly stand to choose one over the other." He eventually resortedto an alternate method: comparing love letters by Royko to his first wife, Carol, to those by Simonede Beauvoir to Nelson Algren. "On the strength of that," he finally decided, "Chicago: City on the

Make advances. Just by a nose. (Not even by the length of Royko's prominent beak. A much shorternose than that: the nose of a Frenchwoman.)"

Of course it wouldn't be a proper tournament without an upset. The biggest one probably came inround one, to the outrage of a few online commenters: "I Sailed With Magellan pulses with life," JuliaThiel wrote. "The Adventures of Augie March is slow, soothing, almost hypnotic. Every time I pickedit up, it immediately lulled me to sleep."

Now that the dust has cleared, we're left with The Warmth of Other Suns and Working. In someways, it's the most perfect and equal and, therefore, the toughest matchup of all. Both are massive,comprehensive examinations of a single subject--the Great Migration and work, respectively--thattouches the lives of everyone in the city. Both rely heavily on oral histories. Both, ironically enough,have long stretches that take place outside Chicago. One has a long-standing place of honor in theChicago canon. The other came out just five years ago. And both are great.

We've invited our judges back for one final ruling. --Aimee Levitt

Judge: Jake Austen

? The Warmth of Other Suns

? Working

Though colleagues have been kind praising my round-one championing of Working, I wouldn't havechosen it as the Greatest Ever Chicago Book. Of the two tomes I was assigned, I argued thatWorking's artistic inferiority to Chris Ware's Building Stories was trumped by Terkel's supremeChicago-ness. Yet I believed a book existed that, considering Working's flaws (not completely aboutChicago, unspectacular prose), easily bested it. Unfortunately, I couldn't name that book. I'dassumed Chicago had produced an unmitigated masterpiece, but perhaps that's not our way. Wedon't expect perfection, and can dig Algren despite purpleness, Wright despite pandering, andRoyko despite hackishness. These shortcomings open the door for a Terkel tourney trophy, but myexpectations weren't Studs plowing through competition (like the Kentucky Wildcats) but, rather,meeting his unexpected match (like the Kentucky Wildcats). A fresher, more literary competitorcould surprise the crusty coot, and I predicted a House on Mango Street bracket busting, asCisneros's writing is superior.

That's also the case with The Warmth of Others Suns: Wilkerson's novelistic approach to presentinghundreds of interviews has more depth, poetry, and variety than Studs's capsules. Her Chicagopassages shine brightest, and had they been the whole of Warmth, this would be no contest. But the

best argument against Working is its non-Chicago content, and Warmth takes lengthy journeys tothe coasts. Wilkerson earned her Pulitzer as a Chicago-based journalist, and Warmth's Ida MaeBrandon Gladney may be the most compelling Chicago character in literature. But the author wasn'tfrom here, didn't stay here, and would neither consider herself a Chicago writer nor label hermasterpiece a Chicago book. While I apologize for redundancy, like the heroes of Working I'mresigned to repeat the same labor, day after day. I once again choose a lesser work because anythingits author touches drips Chicago like a dipped Italian beef.

Judge: Aimee Levitt


? Working

I am sad to report that there's a musical version of Working. It's a terrible, terrible piece of theater,but unfortunately, my high school put it on the year I decided to be on stage crew, so all the songsare now lodged in my brain, and when I die I'll probably spend eternity listening to it on continuousloop. I cannot read certain passages of Working the book without observing how they werebastardized and trivialized by the makers of the musical. And still, for years I've loved Studs, andmore than any of his other books, I've loved Working. It's virtually an encyclopedia of how peoplelive and how they think about living. I taught it in a freshman composition class. I took it with me tojournalism school as a reminder that the best way to learn about the world was by listening.

Sometimes, though, you need to do more than listen. Last fall, I finally read The Warmth of OtherSuns for the first time. It was after Ferguson. The world was no longer as I had always understood itto be. Isabel Wilkerson listened to hundreds of people's stories, and then she put them into contextwith the tools of a historian: laws, statistics, newspaper accounts. It knocked me out. And then, whenI read Working again, it knocked that out, too, at least out of this tournament, as far as I wasconcerned. It's not enough to look at how the world is and what people think about it, I realized. Youhave to understand how it got that way.

Judge: Jerome Ludwig


? Working

On the day that I returned my borrowed copy of The Warmth of Other Suns to Sulzer RegionalLibrary, I went up to the second floor to have a look around. On a long shelf there is a row of boundcopies of the Saturday Evening Post. I have fond memories of being a youngster and reading thePost at my grandparents' home in Kansas. Out of curiosity, I looked at some copies published aroundthe time I was born, just to get a sense of the zeitgeist.

On the cover of the April 4, 1959, issue, the title of an inside story is noted: "Neighborhood Crisis:When a Negro Moves Next Door."

This was all the more poignant after reading The Warmth of Other Suns. That being said, if I were

all-powerful commissioner of the tourney, I would disqualify every book in the way of Native Son andaward Richard Wright's novel the title.

Wright himself was part of the Great Migration that is the subject of Isabel Wilkerson's Final Twobook. She writes of Wright: "He gave voice to the fears and yearnings of his fellow migrants throughhis novel Native Son and his autobiography, Black Boy. . . . He defected to the receiving station ofChicago, via Memphis, in December 1927, to feel, as he put it, 'the warmth of other suns.' "

But I am not the commissioner, and Native Son lost out to The Warmth of Other Suns in round one.Still, I feel that for the purposes of a tourney such as this, the city itself should be a centralcharacter. It isn't quite that in Warmth.

It isn't quite that in Working either, but Studs was of Chicago.

Neck and neck all the way, a nail-biter, but Working wins on a last-second shot in overtime. And thecrowd goes wild!

Judge: Wendy McClure


? Working

I wish we had the option to declare a tie between Working and The Warmth of Other Suns. Beingmonumental, near-classic works, both about great untold American stories, they feel equallymatched. But I think they also stand well together to show the course the tournament took and thejudges' collective notion of what the Greatest Chicago Book should be. We eschewed loneprotagonists, nostalgic streetscapes, and Nobel laureates (much to the chagrin of a few of the onlinecommenters); we weren't guided by the need for certain kinds of canonical recognition, by visions ofbeloved icons, or proverbial women with broken noses.

We're left instead with two excellent works of nonfiction, which seems fitting for a town that gave usThe Jungle and There Are No Children Here as well Mike Royko and Roger Ebert and Eula Biss. And

while neither of these books is about Chicago exclusively, they both are about pluralities and sharedexperiences, as were the other two books in the final four, Chicago: City on the Make and The Houseon Mango Street. I suppose the fact that we left those books behind in the penultimate round meansthat we favor the big stories over the more Chicago-focused ones--or it could just mean that we havecommon sense.

My own common sense tells me that if I must pick one book, it will be the one with the story thatmost urgently needed to be told: The Warmth of Other Suns.

Judge: Tal Rosenberg


? Working

I'm partially responsible for The Warmth of Other Suns making it to the tournament final. In myround-three essay I wrote, "Should the greatest Chicago book not be by or about Chicago, but by anoutsider who addresses Chicago's problems in oblique and indirect ways, in empirical narratives thatare indisputable?" Later, I remarked that I wasn't sure I had the answer, but that I wanted to haveother writers decide with me.

Studs Terkel was a larger-than-life character, but he wasn't a Chicago outsider--being around himwas like, as Jake Austen so eloquently put it, "freebasing Chicago-ism." And I'm not sure Working isa better book than The Warmth of Other Suns. But in its sweeping portrait of people's pursuits, andin its intimacy and realism, it feels like a better Chicago book. The Warmth of Other Suns is a big-picture story, but its portrait of Chicago and even America isn't as comprehensive as Working's. Andif there's anything that defines Chicago, it's people from places all over the world who come to thiscity to work hard doing the things they may or may not love doing, all for an indescribable purposebeyond mere survival, striving toward something ineffably noble.

Judge: Bill Savage


? Working

Pondering the Reader's Greatest Ever Chicago Book Tournament, I recall a line I use when teachingChicago literature:

All representations of cities are partial in two ways: they are incomplete, and they are biased.

That is, there is no way to represent the entirety of the city. (See Borges's "On Exactitude inScience"; and Joyce's claim that you could rebuild a ruined Dublin brick by brick from his fiction isIrish bull of the first order.) And any incomplete representation will necessarily have a particularpoint of view, an angle, that necessarily excludes some things. Look at the Loop skyline and you missthe steeples and smokestacks of the neighborhood skylines.

My own bias has always been towards the more complete Chicago books, books that represent aswide a range of people, places, institutions, and history as possible. That's one reason why I pickedChicago: City on the Make over The Devil in the White City in round one, and why I politicked forAlgren's prose poem over Mike Royko's Boss in round two. Algren's text, by ranging further intohistory and across more of the landscape, encompassing more of Chicago, was simply lessincomplete, less biased.

That said, I have to admit that the final round here leaves me baffled. Terkel's Working is definitelymore complete, representing a wider range of Chicagoans and their experience. But Warmth ofOther Suns represents the central reality of Chicago, its history of aspiration and conflict and race,in such depth and with such mastery that it's hard to choose.

So I won't. Can we call it a tie?

Judge: Peggy Shinner


? Working

I venture to say that most of us, Americans at least, see our lives as ahistorical. History happens inthe past or to other people or, recently, in Indiana. It's the exceptional, not the quotidian. We liveour lives outside of it. Until we don't.

Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns lands us squarely in the stream of history. That is oneof its great triumphs and great rewards. I am a native Chicagoan. I love my city, in all its vexingcomplexity. But how little I have understood it or my place in it. I've taken its racial divides as anunfortunate and unscrutinized given, rather than a consequence of a systematic and cannily craftedset of policies. I have been, as Wilkerson suggests, "sublimely ignorant." Or as journalist Ta-Nehisi

Coates wrote: "The burden of whiteness is this: You can live in the world of myth and be takenseriously." Ignorance is its own kind of myth, fastidiously recast by Wilkerson's monumental story ofthe Great Migration. Chicago was one of its main destinations.

What is this historical moment? It depends who's looking, of course, and from where. Ferguson, EricGarner, Tamir Rice; the rise of "stop and frisk" in Chicago, which disproportionately targets peopleof color; we don't serve gays, a sign that surfaced in Indiana, reminiscent of the ubiquitous coloredonly signs of the Jim Crow south. Jacob Lawrence's epic Migration Series, now on exhibit at MOMAin New York. Coates, deeply influenced by Wilkerson's book, making the case for reparations.

This, then, is the moment.

Judge: Julia Thiel


? Working

Pinpointing the greatest Chicago book is a little like trying to shoot a shape-shifter: just when you'vefinally got it in your sights, it morphs into another form and slips away. (Or at least that's what I'velearned from TV.) Depending on your definition of "greatest ever Chicago book," the title could go toalmost any of the contenders. Does the emphasis go on "greatest" or on "Chicago"? Or on "book"?(Just kidding; they're all books, though Divergent's haters might disagree.)

Having had quite a while to consider these questions, I've found I favor the books that are essentiallylove letters to Chicago: Chicago: City on the Make, I Sailed With Magellan, The Adventures of AugieMarch. (It's true that in my round of judging I chose Magellan over Augie, which I mostly enjoyed asa sleep aid, but I still begrudgingly recognize the latter as a great book.) To me, they embody thegreatest Chicago books.

But that's not the question at hand.

As other judges have noted, it's hard to find a Chicagoan who defines Chicago better than StudsTerkel, and Working is a lasting testament to his skill as an oral historian. Isabel Wilkerson,however, far surpasses him, seamlessly weaving the stories of three participants in the GreatMigration together with the history of the mass exodus from the south. The Warmth of Other Suns isa book about 20th-century America, not Chicago specifically, but the portion dedicated to Ida MaeGladney alone is enough to elevate it above Working, which isn't dedicated entirely to Chicagoanseither.

Judge: Brianna Wellen


? Working

I'll admit I had an agenda going into the Greatest Ever Chicago Book tournament. I was hoping to bethe judge who would advocate against the dead white men who have epitomized this city for toolong. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to officially acknowledge the diversity that makes Chicago

the wonderful place it is.

But given the choice between two lovely works in round three, Working by Studs Terkel and TheHouse on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, I was compelled to change course.

I chose the book by the dead white guy--and I'm doing it again.

While both Working and The Warmth of Other Suns are expertly constructed and provide distinctiveviews of the city, it is once again Terkel's mastery of telling other people's stories that seems to mostpowerfully represent the life and variety of Chicago.

It's important to remember that a different set of 16 books could be read by a different group ofjudges, and the winner of that bracket could be just as deserving of the title. The Greatest EverChicago Book, as we've learned through these essays, means different things to different people.Who knows what books will come out of Chicago in the next ten years; within that sampling could bea masterpiece that captures the voice of city more accurately than we would've dreamed. I hope thathappens, and I hope it's a young nonwhite woman who steps up to the challenge.

And the award for Greatest Ever Chicago Book goes to . . .

After five months, 16 books, and four rounds, the final tally came to four votes for Working, six votesfor Warmth (which included the ballots of judges Andrea Battleground and Danette Chavez), and onedeclaration of a tie. It must be noted 80 percent of the respondents in the final round of our readers'poll predicted Warmth would best Working. Sorry, Studs. v

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What is the Greatest Ever Chicago Book?