Travel. Read. Chicago authors. Which is not totally planned mind you, but there they are, looming bedside, like literary ghosts, all ethereal, other-worldly, and finding their way into the TIMBUK2. Which is not to say we don't favor Chicago authors or writers we know, if even only somewhat. Because we do. Proudly and all tribal as it were. Which is to say that both Hack by Dmitry Samarov and Inside The Whale by Joseph G. Peterson are Chicago books by Chicago guys we know, so there's that. They are also however, books of a type we don't always look to pick-up. With Hack all nonfiction. And Inside The Whale a novel in verse, because yes those exist and notice must be paid when they do. Peterson of course is an old friend and favorite, and anyone who has the stones to write a novel about a drunken, ill-fated, poet bartender's fall from grace who somehow may yet still majestically live on through words and child has our life-long admiration.
Which is not even to mention the rich cover art, the illustrations, or the commensurate stones Wicker Park Press must have to publish such a creation. Which feels as Chicago as anything. Well, as anything as Hack that is. Which not only has kick-ass cover art and illustrations itself, but said cover and illustrations are by the author himself. An author who is kind enough to take us on a spin to all corners Chicago as he finds fares of all kinds, the drunk, the racist, the wretched, and the sexed-up. All kinds and all tribes. All Chicago really. As are both books at that. Full of ghosts, and full of what the city is and ever will be, full of rich, albeit broken characters, full of life, full of stones, and full of words, rivers full, and sure to change your life yo.
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