Order and Politics in “This is Not Normal” – Chicago Review of Books

Order and Politics in “This is Not Normal” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In Cass Sunstein’s book This is Not Normal, he observes that “…the success of President Trump has made many people fear that a president, with his current powers, might have the ability to undermine the foundations of a democratic order, above all by altering the understanding of what counts as normal.”  Um, yes. I … Read more

The 400-Year Continuum We All Share with Ida B. Wells – Chicago Review of Books

The 400-Year Continuum We All Share with Ida B. Wells – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Reading about Ida B. Wells is like reading a biography of activism itself, of a whole flock of lives lived. Born into enslavement in Mississippi in 1862, Wells died in 1931, a year after running for the Illinois State Senate. In between, she became, at sixteen, the primary caregiver to five younger siblings after … Read more

Dantiel W. Moniz’s “Milk Blood Heat” is a Debut to Remember – Chicago Review of Books

Dantiel W. Moniz’s “Milk Blood Heat” is a Debut to Remember – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Heat is the operative word in the title of Dantiel W. Moniz’s debut collection, Milk Blood Heat, because these stories are fire. There is the Florida heat, certainly, as most of the stories are set in Jacksonville and the surrounding area, but there is more to it than mere setting. In this case, the … Read more

Mysteries Past and Present in “Waiting for the Night Song” – Chicago Review of Books

Mysteries Past and Present in “Waiting for the Night Song” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Burning Worlds is Amy Brady’s monthly column dedicated to examining how contemporary literature interrogates issues of climate change, in partnership with Yale Climate Connections. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter to get “Burning Worlds” and other writing about art and climate change delivered straight to your inbox. Julie Carrick Dalton’s debut novel, Waiting for the Night Song, hums with … Read more

Strikers Sit Down and Win in “Midnight in Vehicle City” – Chicago Review of Books

Strikers Sit Down and Win in “Midnight in Vehicle City” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] On December 30, 1936, workers took over the General Motors factory in Flint, Michigan and held it for 44 days, facing down bosses, vigilantes, and police. Through their strike, workers won a living wage, better working conditions, and recognition of their union, the United Automobile Workers of America (the UAWA, later known as the … Read more

28 Stories You Can Read Online for Black History Month – Chicago Review of Books

28 Stories You Can Read Online for Black History Month – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] 2020 was a year full of reckonings. For the publishing industry, it meant coming face to face with its continued failures to address a lack of diversity in their companies, and in their slates of authors. According to an Opinion column published in the New York Times entitled “Just How White is the Book … Read more

Generational Trauma in Avni Doshi’s Booker Prize Finalist “Burnt Sugar” – Chicago Review of Books

Generational Trauma in Avni Doshi’s Booker Prize Finalist “Burnt Sugar” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] “My mother is forgetting, and there is nothing I can do about it. There is no way to make her remember the things she has done in the past, no way to baste her in guilt.” With this, we are thrust into the cruel, callous, complicated world of Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar, a world … Read more

Separation and Belonging in “Bride of the Sea” – Chicago Review of Books

Separation and Belonging in “Bride of the Sea” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] One of fiction’s greatest possibilities is how it can exist as something both intimate and grand, simultaneously exploring the life of a character and the world they are growing into, until one narrative unfolds into many. Bride of the Sea does just this, as the novel intertwines the dissolution and reconstruction of a single … Read more