Compliments of Chicagohoodz: Chicago Street Gang Art and Culture

by Jinx/Mr. C
Feral House     2019
376 pages     Nonfiction

My grandson and his girlfriend just about freaked out when I showed them the copy of Compliments of Chicagohoodz that I had received from the publisher. As products of the Chicago Public Schools, they knew kids who had grown up in the Chicago gangs, and they both had stories to tell. First, I had them look at the book, and then they told their stories.

Compliements of Chicagohoodz tells the story of the Chicago street gangs, their art, and their culture from the 1950s until the early 1990s. The book is the product of the 25-year history project of James O'Connor who collected pictures and conducted interviews, photographed street art, and sorting memorabilla of the P Stones, the Vice Lords, the Gangster Disciples, the Latin Kings, as well as a host of other gangs around the city.

Somethinig neither young adult nor I knew about was the creation and distribution of gang business, or compliment, cards. The practice of creating and distributing street gang business (“compliment”) cards was popular in Chicago for over fifty years. These displayed the organization and branch, its active and fallen members, and rivalries. Compliments of Chicagohoodz tells the stories behind the names, bringing the reader closer to the individuals who created, owned, and added their personal touches to the card as it passed from hand to hand. Over 675 cards are shown with accompanying explanations.

After reading the book, my grandson remarked that he was surprised to note that Chicago gangs in the past were so Medieval in scope and behavior. He said that reading the book was much like watching Game of Thrones: the rivalries, the conflicts, the posturing.

One of the stories my grandson told me was about his high school friend, Joseph. Joseph joined the Latin Kings as a 14-year-old, even though he was attending one of the select high schools in the city. He was hanging aroud with a friend one evening, when the kid pulled out a gun and started shooting at some kids from a rival gang. Joseph ran; my grandson didn't see him for a couple of years. It turned out that his parents put him in a car and drove him to a sister's house in Iowa City, Iowa the very night of the shooting.

I believe that while the audience for Compliments of Chicagohoodz is fairly limited, it certainly will be welcomed by anyone who grew up in Chicago. One reviewer summed it up: "Thick as a bible and going to blow minds." It certainly blew Max and Brianna's minds. The book is going home with them.

The book's Facebook page.

Fleishman is in Trouble

by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Random House     2019
384 pages     Literary

Fleishman is in Trouble is a novel about a marriage that has failed. What were the reasons? What was the cause? Why? The book is an exploration of the concept, "And the two shall become one." This debut novel is a tough look at all marriage, particularly marriages in the 21st century. It is also a meditation about the value of marriage, as well as its fragility.

Toby Fleishman is a doctor in Manhattan; his ex-wife, Rachel, the owner of a successful talent agency. Apparently in the social milleau in which they travel, being a doctor is not enough and Rachel is the chief breadwinner. When the couple are divorced, Rachel must pay the alimony and Toby is totally lost. To add to the dilemma, Rachel has disappeared, leaving Toby totally in charge of his two confused children. Most of the narrative is about Toby, his anger and his angst. We also explore his search for a new sexual partner.

The story is told by Libby, a college friend of Toby's. Libby has been a journalist, but she is now a stay-at-mom of small children. After we know more about the author, we realize that Libby is a stand- in for the author. Although she seldom inserts herself in the narrative, she is astute in her portrayal of what has happened to Toby's marriage. Although Toby is sure that the fault is all Rachel's, Libby helps us understand that there is fault on all sides. We understand from her narrative that her own marriage is on pretty firm ground. She also tells the story of their old friend Seth, who after years of philandering, has set himself on a different marriage course. We watch that marriage unfold as well.

The reviewer in the Guardian says, "But Fleishman Is in Trouble is so much smarter than a Great American Novel wannabe written by another clever man." Like that reviewer, I found it incredibly profound and nuanced on the subject of marriage. To add to my enlightenment, I was with a lot of family and extended family members, all of whom had marriages to watch and evaluate. One of the concepts that Brodesser-Akner floats is that marriage has moved beyond equal partners to two individuals who have chosen to be together. There is little of the "he completes me" or "she really compliments him" that we saw in the past. At one point, Toby, in the thick of dating and having sex with women he has met on the Internet, has the thought: "Only briefly did he think to wonder if he was doing a bad job of thinking of the women he dated as people."

I have thought about the book daily since I finished reading it two weeks ago. I looked back over all the underlining I did, all the wonderful phrasing, and the great insights, and I still marvel at its profundity. This week I am watching a grandson and his girlfriend in their blossoming relationship, and I bask in the wonder of relationships--the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a celebrity interviewer for the New York Times Magazine. I am guessing that her years of viewing relationships from the outside have weighed heavily on her insights on marriage. I highly recommend Fleishman is in Trouble--one of my favorites of the year.

Lions of the Sky

By Paco Chierici

Braveship     2018

274 pages     Thriller

The Shortlist

Paco Chierici is an airline pilot and a former Navy fighter pilot. His first novel, Lions in the Sky, plays upon his experiences. He is able to include many real-life touches that add a great deal of authenticity to this story of pilots facing threats posed in the South China Sea.

Here is the summary from the back cover:

“In the world of fighter pilots, the most alpha of the alpha, competition is everything and the stakes are impossibly high. A Top Gun for the new millennium, LIONS OF THE SKY propels us into a realm in which friendship, loyalty, and skill are tested, battles won and lost in an instant, and lives irrevocably changed in the time it takes to plug in your afterburners.”

Although I knew nothing about the vernacular of  fighter pilots, their training, and their missions, it is obvious that Chierici knows what he is talking about, and the characters resonated. This book will be perfect for the men (and women) on your list who like action thrillers. Give it a try.

Here is Chierici’s website. 

Rouge: A Novel of Beauty and Rivalry

By Richard Kirshenbaum

St. Martins     2019

320 pages    Historical Fiction

This is a fun romp through the early days of the cosmetics industry, loosely based on the rivalry of Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden. Kirkus calls it “a vivid portrait of glamorous, feisty women contending for the crown of cosmetics queen.” I had just seen the musical War Paint, about the lives of Rubenstein and Arden, when the advanced copy of Rouge came to me, so I had a great time comparing plot lines. Loved War Paint; loved Rouge.

Here is the description from the publisher.

“Rouge is a sexy, glamorous journey into the rivalry of the pioneers of powder, mascara and rouge. It gives readers a rare front row seat into the world of high society and business through the rivalry of two beauty industry icons (think Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden).

This fast-paced novel examines the lives, loves, and sacrifices of the visionaries who invented the modern cosmetics industry: Josiah Herzenstein, born in a Polish Jewish Shtlel, the entrepreneur who transforms herself into a global style icon and the richest woman in the world, Josephine Herz; Constance Gardiner, her rival, the ultimate society woman who invents the door-to-door business and its female workforce but whose deepest secret threatens everything; CeeCee Lopez, the bi-racial beauty and founder of the first African American woman’s hair relaxer business, who overcomes prejudice and heartbreak to become her community’s first female millionaire. 

The cast of characters is rounded out by Mickey Heron, a dashing, sexy ladies' man whose cosmetics business is founded in a Hollywood brothel. All are bound in a struggle to be number one, doing anything to get there…including murder.”

Rouge begins in the early part of the 20^th century and closes near the end of the century. The characters are richly developed and the rivalry daunting. One interesting true fact about the cosmetics industry was that Victorian women did not wear makeup, and the inventors of the industry had to fight the stereotype that only hookers wore makeup. But under the guidance of these forthright (and also conniving) women, soon every woman in America was wearing makeup,and the novel’s two protagonists had become rich beyond measure.

Kirshenbaum is an advertising executive/author. His specialty is writing about the one percent that live in his neighborhood. Kirshenbaum must have had a great time recreating wealthy Manhattan through the eyes of Josephine, Constance, CeeCee and the others as they built their beauty empires. The reader finds herself thrust into the very heart of the city, its shops, and its nightlife. As one reviewer said, “it’s glitz, greed, and glamor.”  

Rouge is released tomorrow. Get a glass of wine, grab a lawn chair, settle down by the pool and enjoy.

Where the Crawdads Sing

By Delia Owens

Putnam     2018

384 pages     Literary

Despite some implausibility, which my book club friends were happy to point out at book club last night, I absolutely loved Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Primarily, I was entranced by the descriptions of the marshlands of the Outer Banks and how Kya Clark learned to live by herself and become an expert in the life of the marsh.

When Kya was a small child, her mother walked away from the shack in the North Carolina marsh where the family lives, unable to endure her abusive husband any longer. All the children leave as well, leaving Kya alone with her drunken father. When her father leaves for good, Kya must fend for herself. As she grows, she becomes a sort of mystical character to the residents of the small nearby village. Called “the marsh girl”, she successfully is able to fend off attempts to get her to go to school, get sent to an orphanage, or in any way become part of the community.

As much as Kya hides from society, she misses human contact. Tate, a brilliant young man of the village, becomes her primary contact with other humans. He loves the marsh as much as she does, and over several years, he teaches her to read and write and study the environment. Additionally, a black couple who run the convenience store and gas station become the people who seem to watch out for her the most and protect her.

The story-line weaves back and forth between Kya’s growing up in the 50s and early 60s and the death of a young man in the village. Chase has been Kya’s off- and-on lover, and after his apparent murder, Kya is accused of causing his death. The trial is absolutely breath-taking. I found myself having to pace my reading and my breathing. The climax of the book is equally heart-stopping.

The parts of the book where Kya learns to forage, to live off of nature, and observe everything around her are so beautifully and skillfully written that I became completely enmeshed in the imagery. I found myself underlining many passages beginning with the first paragraph. “The morning burned so August-hot, the marsh’s moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog. The palmetto patches stood unusually quiet except for the low, slow flap of the heron’s wings lifting from the lagoon.” Or in an especially vivid description of the village, the author writes, “Mostly the village seemed tired of arguing with the elements, and simply sagged.” Can’t you just see it!

There are reasons why Where the Crawdads Sing has been at the top of the NY Times bestseller list for thirty weeks. Delia Owens spent many years as a nature researcher in Africa, so she can relate to the isolation of the wilderness, whether it be the Savannah or the marsh. In a very interesting interview, she mentions that she picked North Carolina as the setting for the novel because its temperate climate would allow for foraging all year. Owens has written several nonfiction books about Africa, but this is her first foray into fiction. Reese Witherspoon has picked up the rights. We’ll see what can be done to make it into a movie.

Murder in Bel-Air

By Cara Black

Soho Crime         2019

312 pages     Thriller

Murder in Bel-Air is the first Aimée Leduc Private Investigator mystery I have read. This is book #19. How is it possible that I have never met her nor visited the Paris she investigates? I looked back and realized that the publisher had sent me an advanced reader’s copy of the 2016 book, Murder in the Marais, but I hadn’t taken the time to read it. Ah well!

It was fairly easy to get into Murder in Bel-Air; it is not one of those series that the author has to spend several chapters bringing the reader up to speed. Aimée Leduc is the owner of a detective agency in Paris, and the novel is set in 1999, when technology is seeping into the world of crime, as well as the world of private detectives. 

Aimée’s American mother is a thorn in her side. A supposedly retired CIA operative, Sydney doesn’t seem to be changing her ways. She was scheduled to pick up her baby granddaughter, Chloé, from her play group, when she disappeared once again. Aimée is called by the day care, and she must leave a technology meeting, where she is to deliver the keynote address, in order to pick up her daughter. Everything goes downhill from there. Sydney is missing, and is somehow connected with the body of a homeless woman from a nearby soup kitchen. As Aimée searches for her mother, she gets caught up investigating a potential coup in the Ivory Coast, a creepy Legionnaire, and a cadre of international spies.

All this happens as Aimée stylishly swishes her way around Paris—places I knew about, but many places I wish I knew about. She wears her vintage outfits as well as the stylish outfits of her best friend, and always has high heels or classy boots on her feet. Several times a day, she checks in on Chloé, who has a variety of babysitters, all the while keeping in constant contact with Rene and Saq, who run the Leduc Investigations agency.

Although there are some slow spots, as soon as Aimée figures out what is going on, things start to move fairly rapidly, and it becomes a very fun page turner. There is a great final confrontation and a fitting denouement.

I loved all the French phrases and Paris scenes. I knew very little about the history of the Ivory Coast and its fateful relationship to France, which is one of the subplots. I also really enjoyed seeing an extremely skillful author weave all of Paris into the plotline. It was a very enjoyable couple of days.  

Here is an interesting look at Cara Black and the Aimée Leduc franchise over the last 20 years. Murder in Bel-Air was released two weeks ago.

Deep Water Blues

By Fred Waitzkin

Open Road Media     2019

160 pages     Literary

It is always a lovely experience when you open a book with no anticipation, and then find that it matches your reading ideals. Such was the case with the novella, Deep Water Blues by Fred Waitzkin. It is the story of a paradise island in the Caribbean called Rum Cay that becomes paradise lost. It is the story of greed and misplaced expectations, love and lust, and great loss.  

While the author himself is a character in the book, the main character is an expat named Bobby Little who has created a small paradise on a remote island in the Caribbean. The boat dock, the restaurant where Bobby is the chef, and the entertainment are all courtesy of Bobby. But then, suddenly, things change. Tragedy strikes when a boat carrying Haitian migrants capsizes in the harbor, and the grisly shark-eaten bodies cast a pall over the island. Bobby struggles to regain his footing and becomes threatened by a business partner, Dennis, who conspires to take over Bobby’s kingdom.

What makes the story unique is the insertion of Fred Waitzkin, the author, into the story line as an observer to the plot. He acts as a quasi-narrator, although he is not in every scene. He is on his fishing boat, the Ebb Tide, with a couple of buddies and an artist, John Mitchell, whose drawings become an integral part of the book. He says, “Many times I’ve made the long ocean voyage to Rum Cay to troll off the southeast corner of the island. But my fishing ardor has often been dwarfed by surprises onshore, where breezy sensuous nights plunge me back into the yearnings of a younger man and where I’ve met maimed and beautiful people on the dock and a few that were evil beyond redemption.”

Somehow, Waitzkin’s addition of himself into the plot lends authenticity to the story. What is true? What isn’t? This is a great plot device and kept me reading through a lot of grisly stuff. What was going to happen next? How would it end?

Deep Water Blues is not a book I would have picked up to read on my own, which made the surprise of good writing and fascinating plot all the more desirable. Thanks to the publicist for introducing me to a a very interesting read.

 Fred Waitzkin is the author of the memoir, Searching for Bobby Fischer, which told the story of his son Josh, a child prodigy and chess expert. Many will remember the movie based on his book. This is his website.