“In academia, we tend to think of writers as a bunch of dead people–mostly dead white males. My goal as a teacher is to make these dead writers real,” says Fred Gardaphe, an English professor at Columbia College. “We can’t meet Theodore Dreiser or Nelson Algren, yet these people have such an impact on the way we look at Chicago literature.”
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The result incorporates Gardaphe’s editorial experience, Osborne’s underground publishing experience, and a mutual fascination with multiethnic literature.
“What you will find in this collection is a multicultural neighborhood in print, a neighborhood which has yet to surface on Chicago streets, one which is perhaps still years away in a city that touts its culturally plural makeup while still enforcing rigid boundaries between segregated neighborhoods,” wrote Gardaphe in the book’s introduction.
Although City Stoop holds no allegiance to political correctness, political issues permeate the book. Paul Hoover’s “Demonstration,” from his novel Saigon, Illinois, paints the scene of an antiwar demonstration on State Street during the 60s. In “The Man Who Loved Life,” Sara Paretsky turns from her familiar penchant for mysteries to address the abortion issue from the perspective of a rough, patriarchal figure.
“There’s a survival aspect to our philosophy,” says Bailey. “It’s critically important for people living in our changing society to know one another.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jon Randolph.
