Childhood and Other Neighborhoods: Stories

by Stuart Dybek

Book Overview

In Stuart Dybek's Chicago, wonder lurks in unexpected places-in garbage-strewn alleys, gloomy basement apartments, abandoned rooms at the top of rickety stairs periodically rumbled by passing el trains. Transformed through the wide eyes of Dybek's adolescent heroes, these grimy urban backwaters become exotic landscapes of fear-filled possibility, of dreams not yet turned to nightmares. Chronicling what happens when Old World faith meets the dark side...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226176584
• ISBN13: 9780226176581
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

So happy to see Dybek back in print

I'm very happy to see an extraordinary writer get some recognition, as Dybek has with his new collection "I Sailed with Magellan." I hope his new readers will pick up this book as well, which is, quite simply, the best collection of short stories I've read. Dybek captures the magic, wonder, and fear of childhood and adolescence precisely, transporting us back to that time in our own life where we still hoped anything was possible, but had seen enough of the world to know otherwise.

Magical Realism in the Realest of Cities

This is my favorite collection of short stories by any contemporary author. Stories like "Blood Soup" contain bizarre, unforgettable characters and the author's unique, horrified yet loving view of Chicago mainly through the eyes of children. The neo-gothic setting of the "city of big shoulders" (as Carl Sandburg put it) is a perfect backdrop to stories of love, violence, and growing up.