Coming to Terms with Boston’s Racist Legacy in “Small Mercies” – Chicago Review of Books

Coming to Terms with Boston’s Racist Legacy in “Small Mercies” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] From the Kenzie and Gennaro novels that established him as a master of new noir, to the haunting crime thriller Mystic River and his magnum opus of the 1919 Boston Police Strike, The Given Day, Dennis Lehane has captured Boston neighborhoods with more grit, vitality, and unerring precision than any writer in recent memory. … Read more

The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial” – Chicago Review of Books

The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial, by Mona Chollet, is a revelatory collection of histories and experiences that have been carefully ignored across centuries of time. Even a devoted reader will find it difficult to think of a book besides Chollet’s that does … Read more

Loss and Legacy in “A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes” – Chicago Review of Books

Loss and Legacy in “A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Rodrigo García lost his mother, Mercedes Barcha Pardo, in August of 2020. Like so many others, he was kept from her bedside by COVID-19 travel restrictions. In A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son’s Memoir, he writes:  “Unable to travel, I saw her alive for the last time on the cracked screen of … Read more

An Enduring Legacy in “The Essential June Jordan” – Chicago Review of Books

An Enduring Legacy in “The Essential June Jordan” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Creating a fresh playlist of such a critical voice in modern American poetry is both a significant challenge for the editors and a satisfying reward for us. The Essential June Jordan, edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller, is a generous collection which samples poems—some unpublished—across decades, making one distinctly aware of how … Read more

The Power and Legacy of Language in “The Liar’s Dictionary” – Chicago Review of Books

The Power and Legacy of Language in “The Liar’s Dictionary” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Georges Seurat’s painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is a marquee visitor attraction at the Art Institute of Chicago. This painting of mid-19th century Parisians picnicking on the banks of the Seine is large, but the figures within it are made up of millions of tiny colored dots. To view the painting, visitors … Read more