south of the loop

I ventured to the Newberry Library one Saturday in early December, a numbingly cold morning that begged more for my down comforter than a jaunt downtown. While looking at the library’s website a few weeks earlier, I had seen a program called “Writing Chicago Childhoods” that featured authors Elaine Soloway, Billy Lombardo, and Frank Joseph. All three authors would read from their books and then participate in a panel discussion “of how the authors brought to life the vanished worlds of their childhoods.” And so I shed my down comforter and left my warm apartment: it was an interesting topic, I’d read Billy Lombardo’s book The Logic of a Rose this past summer, and maybe I’d pick up something about writing memoirs.

Elaine Soloway read first, from her self-published book The Division Street Princess. Soloway is a tiny but imposing 68-year-old Jewish woman with short, silver hair and dark cat-eye glasses. At least I thought she was imposing—how else do you describe a four-foot-ten-inch-woman who looks down at you?—but that impression melted as soon as she started reading a dark chapter from her life and her book. Soloway grew up in Chicago—on Division Street, natch—during the 1940s. This chapter, which tells of an unwilling loss of innocence, is framed with the real story of the kidnapping and murder of Suzanne Degnan, which Soloway said consumed everybody’s thoughts at the time. Soloway, who was about Degnan’s age at then, saw pictures of this other innocent little girl on the newspapers her parents tried to shield her from. Her innocence takes a double blow, one at the hands of Degnan’s murder, one at the hands of a sleazy neighbor. Even her father, her protector, the one who calls her “Princess,” can’t restore it. Soloway promised this was the darkest chapter; even if it’s not, I hope to read the rest of her book someday soon.

Billy Lombardo, whose book I read last summer, wore his microphone so he could stand in front of the podium. Lombardo is a high school teacher, so maybe podiums are just too restricting for his tastes or habits, but I thought this was a nice touch. Especially since I’d already met his protagonist, one Petey Bellapani—Petey Goodbread, the neighborhood baker calls him—this brought Petey a little closer, made him a little more familiar. One thing I hadn’t expected (only because I hadn’t given it any thought) was Lombardo’s thick Chicago accent. Chicago accents are a bit of a giggle-inducer for me. They sound so Bronxy: “hey, how you doon?” But I recovered from my initial startle, settled into Lombardo’s accent, and reacquainted myself with Petey in the story “The Pilgrim Virgin.” Lombardo has a particular talent for capturing youthfulness inside adult reflection, which resonates even more in his own voice. You can, and should, listen to a radio interview of him on his website; it’s a little long, but it’s great fun to hear Petey’s distinct voice, his distinct Chicago accent.

Frank Joseph read last, and was for me the least exciting. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt; because he read from a novel, he had to read the excerpts a bit piecemeal, stopping to fill in the plot holes before moving to the next. Perhaps his is the kind of novel that just works better quietly, as a whole. Joseph also writes about Chicago in the 1940s, a city apparently defined along even more stringent racial lines than today. His book is about two boys, one Jewish, one black, who meet during a fistfight behind Comiskey Park. The black boy gets taken to the hospital, and the Jewish boy tracks him down later, feeling badly about what happened. They form something like a friendship, teaching each other about street smarts and kosher hot dogs.

The author panel wasn’t much of one—mostly some half-hearted questions about how to find an agent/publisher/self-publisher etc. (Maybe I would have been more appreciative if I was actually in the market for one of the above, but isn’t that what the Internet/library/bookstore is for?) More interesting would have been the promised discussion of bringing vanished childhoods to the page. That’s why I’d gone to the panel in the first place, although listening to Soloway and Lombardo read aloud more than made up for it.

One theme did repeat itself during the Q&A: early rising. Both Lombardo and Soloway said that they wrote most every morning, and at such early godawful hours—3:30am, 4:30am. Hours earlier than I get up unless there is a flight involved, and even then it’s an uphill battle involving repeated pressings of the snooze button. Is this the kind of discipline required to become a published author? Because I’m almost positive that if I set my alarm for 3:30, it would still be going off when I awoke four hours later. I’m also almost positive that I cannot spit at 4am, let alone string words together or put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. Perhaps I should stick with blogging for now.

* * *

current book: Moved on to the next story in The Crystal Frontier, which is far better than the one prior, which seemed like a poor middle-school experiment.

current music: Listened to a little over half of John’s Best of 2006 Mix. I had to take a break from all the hip-hop, so I’m giving the e.g.s. mix of 17 august 2005 a spin right now.

current socks: Dark blue with light purplish-blue polka dots. Very fuzzy. Mmmmm.

Posted 16 January 2007

Filed under: books, chicago, writing by admin2

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