To respect member's privacy and keep things awesome, most of Litsy is hidden from Google. We let humans see and share pages, but not machines. Find out more.
In Stuart Dybek's Chicago, wonder lurks in unexpected placesin garbage-strewn alleys, gloomy basement apartments, abandoned rooms at the top of rickety stairs periodically rumbled by passing el trains. Transformed through the wide eyes of Dybek's adolescent heroes, these grimy urban backwaters become exotic landscapes of fear-filled possibility, of dreams not yet turned to nightmares. Chronicling what happens when Old World faith meets the dark side of the American dream, Dybek's poignant stories of coming of age in Chicago alternately appall, amaze, and just simply entertain.