Title: An American Summer Pdf Love and Death in Chicago
An Amazon Best Book of March 2019: In An American Summer, Alex Kotlowitz turns his compassionate investigative eye back to the urban violence of the Windy City. In order to understand the level of violence that still plagues Chicago, Kotlowitz chronicles the events of a single summer in some of the city’s most neglected neighborhoods. Of the people Kotlowitz profiles, some end up dead, while others have committed violent acts, including murder. And far too many others are the collateral damage of revenge, pride, and poverty. There are a shocking number of children in Chicago who suffer from high levels of anxiety, sleeplessness, and even auditory hallucinations as the result of the things they’ve seen. As the pages add up, so do the bullets and the collective grief--but also a deeper connection to what is happening. There is so much heartbreak here, from the social worker who makes valuable headway with a difficult student only to find herself cut from the school program, to the story of a young man courageous enough to name his cousin’s killer, who is later murdered for it. As he did in his bestseller There Are No Children Here, Kotlowitz gives readers an opportunity to see for themselves the lives and substance of the people behind the statistics. These are people who, without his book, may very easily stay hidden from view. --Seira Wilson, Amazon Book Review "An American Summer is an archive of the war--like finding a shocking but beautiful bundle of letters and photographs in the attic. Except that these dispatches reflect the daily violence that many Americans are experiencing, right now, in too many of our cities. Alex Kotlowitz dispenses with wooden categories of criminal and victim. With his uncommon warmth and sensitivity, he makes us understand that violence doesn’t happen in a moment; it’s a state of affairs."--Sarah Koenig, host of Serial“Unforgettable . . . Like Kotlowitz’s now classic ‘There Are No Children Here,’ An American Summer probes the human damage that stems from exposure to violence . . . a powerful indictment of a city and a nation that have failed to protect their most vulnerable residents, or to register their pain.”--Eric Klinenberg, The New York Times Book Review“Alex Kotlowitz has written daringly . . . readers who join his harrowing journey surely will emerge with deeper and kinder understandings, and perhaps feel morally implicated by their understanding of the grim realities his summer tour shows us. Kotlowitz is a brilliant reporter who covers one of America’s most heartbreaking beats. . . Kotlowitz’s accounts of love, friendship, parenting, rivalry, humiliation and the pressure to maintain respect are fascinatingly real.”--Minneapolis Star Tribune“A reporting mosaic . . . a painful chronicle about an extremely violent city based on the narratives of those who managed to survive its streets. With this book, Kotlowitz amplifies the words of those who have witnessed [violence] and makes their experience available to readers. The experience is tremendously necessary.”--NPR.org"An American Summer is so compelling it's almost impossible to put down."--The Daily Beast“This book is revelatory and brilliant. There Are No Children Here changed me when I read it years ago. An American Summer has done it again.” --Wes Moore, bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore and CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation"A masterpiece of real-life storytelling. 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, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Evicted"In his latest powerful sociological exploration, [Kotlowitz] masterfully captures the summer of 2013 in neglected Chicago neighborhoods, rendering intimate profiles of residents and the "very public" violence they face every day. . . A fiercely uncompromising--and unforgettable--portrait." --Kirkus, starred review"Kotlowitz has a ruminative, almost poetic sensibility . . . The violence is made palpable but never romanticized. Kotlowitz’s approach is empathetic in this bold, unflinching depiction of an ever-lengthening crisis."--Publishers Weekly, starred review"[A] heartfelt and, at times, surprisingly hopeful portrait of a city battling intractable ills. By giving each and every person he talks to the time and respect to tell his or her story, Kotlowitz evokes fully dimensional human beings rather than the statistics or caricatures most of us are used to in reports on "bad" neighborhoods."--Chicago Reader "What remains after the deaths, the funerals, the court hearings, the jail sentences, the mourning? This is the question at the heart of Alex Kotlowitz's compassionate and unflinching new book, and what emerges speaks to a stubborn, immovable, singular drive towards hope and forgiveness. Kotlowitz reminds us again and again that what happens in Chicago reflects the best and worst of our nation. This spectacular book is an urgent call to bear witness, not to the dying that violence breeds, but to the love that stands tall amidst the debris." --Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion's Gaze"Alex Kotlowitz doesn’t provide solutions to the violence that plagues Chicago. Instead, he eloquently bears witness to a single summer on its streets, chronicling a community’s ongoing struggle with murder, misery, and rage. This deeply empathetic and perceptive book isn’t easy to read. But we can only see into the neglected corners of America when someone shines a light."--Christian Science Monitor "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
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.
Didn’t Meet My Expectations This book could have been so much more. What an important and currently pressing topic Alex Kotlowitz chose to write about. The homicide and violent crime rate in Chicago is staggering. Kotlowitz says that in the past 20 years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and roughly 60,000 have been wounded by gunfire. The vast majority of the killings happen in a small space in Chicago--but the violence has been spreading out all over the city. National and regional papers report of the killings daily.I've read another book by Kotlowitz and have found him to be a very gifted writer. He's an artist with words. He has a very smooth writing style and uses words to paint pictures in a way that few others can. I know little about what's going on in Chicago, so I was excited to learn more--especially through the writing of Kotlowitz. But this book felt flat.During a summer in Chicago, Kotlowitz chronicles the life of African American male teenagers and some men past their prime previously involved in gang violence. In only a few months, we learn of many gruesome murders and lives ruined by the violence.Kotlowitz seems to blame the failures of his main characters on the society that they've grown up in. Even when adopted out and moved to the suburbs, Kotlowitz's characters return to a life of crime. It's almost, as if, the main characters in the book are destined to kill others. Robbing people seems to be in their blood and hurting others seems to be the fault of the character's lapse of judgment, society, or something else. But Kotlowitz doesn't seem to rest blame in the murderer or perpetrator himself. The murderer or perpetrator is portrayed as a victim and his family as victims too.By the way--why aren't women included as characters in this book? Do they not perpetrate the violent crime? If they don't, then why not?The book is entirely predictable. In fact, it's so predictable that it's absurd. We're meant to see that the murders in jail actually are good people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe that's true. I don't know. But it's hard to believe that every murderer followed in the book has a good heart and is rather blameless. I would have liked to know more about the character's upbringing, their experiences in school, and the rest of their life. Two paragraphs--or even two pages--about any of these topics doesn't suffice.The violence in Chicago results from complex matters and it would have been nice for Kotlowitz to consider and develop each of the potential causes for the high crime rate. Glossing over the lives of the main characters and their families doesn't serve the topic justice.Perhaps it's worthwhile to read a few chapters of this book. But if you want to learn more about what's going on in Chicago, I'd suggest reading another source.Important Book Amazing look at the systemic ways that poverty and race intersect.Such An Important Book! This book makes you think differently about the world and the communities left behind. It's a book that really challenges assumptions and perceptions and keeps surprising the reader with every chapter. There is no journalist quite like Kotlowitz, who can take readers into worlds that feel so far away. In this book, as he does so well in all his writing, you feel like you're pressed against the glass of peoples' lives. It's so intimate. I also love the use of the original writing from the subjects he follows. They come in the form of journals, letters, social media posts, etc. You really hear their voices on these pages. Bravo!
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