Overview

From the bestselling 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 twenty 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? 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. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty 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.

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9781984841179

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A masterpiece of real-life storytelling from one of the nation's most committed investigative reporters, An American Summer is among the most honest and big-hearted accounts of urban violence I have ever read. With each unforgettable story, Kotlowitz draws us into the lives of people living and working in some of Chicago's most abandoned communities. The stories of suffering and revenge unsettle and enrage; those of grace and forgiveness warm and inspire. Together, they dispel with cheap explanations, offering deeper sense to acts thought senseless and revealing people's depth and humanity lost in the headlines. --Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted An American Summer is at turns shocking, heart-rending, and deeply moving. But it is always important. This is about the soul of our country. --Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels Alex Kotlowitz, America's pre-eminent narrative journalist, has written a searing, profound and profoundly human book about the gun violence that plagues American cities. Everyone who cares about the future of our cities and of our country will come away deeply moved, and with a deepened understanding of the long shadow cast by substandard schools, housing and job opportunities. It's not a call to action, but the stories Kotlowitz tells cry out to all readers to start acting. --Sara Paretsky, New York Times bestselling author of Shell Game

A masterpiece of real-life storytelling from one of the nation's most committed investigative reporters, An American Summer is among the most honest and big-hearted accounts of urban violence I have ever read. With each unforgettable story, Kotlowitz draws us into the lives of people living and working in some of Chicago's most abandoned communities. The stories of suffering and revenge unsettle and enrage; those of grace and forgiveness warm and inspire. Together, they dispel with cheap explanations, offering deeper sense to acts thought senseless and revealing people's depth and humanity lost in the headlines. --Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted An American Summer is at turns shocking, heart-rending, and deeply moving. But it is always important. This is about the soul of our country. --Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

Author Information

Alex Kotlowitz is the author of the national bestseller There Are No Children Here, which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. His second book, The Other Side of the River, was awarded the Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction. For his documentary film, The Interrupters, he received an Emmy and a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Kotlowitz's work, which has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and on public radio's This American Life, has been honored with two Peabody awards, two duPont-Columbia University awards, and a George Polk Award. He is a writer in residence at Northwestern University. Kotlowitz lives with his wife, Maria Woltjen, and their two children, Mattie and Lucas, just outside of Chicago.

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