"Vivid, laconic, and crisp. The bodies fall like dominoes, and every word sounds like it was shot from a gun. And as you might expect from Lesy, the photographs are extraordinary." —Luc Sante
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Summary
"Vivid, laconic, and crisp. The bodies fall like dominoes, and every word sounds like it was shot from a gun. And as you might expect from Lesy, the photographs are extraordinary." —Luc Sante
Description
Michael Lesy\'s portrait of a gruesome era could be fiction -- but it\'s not.
"Things began as they usually did: Someone shot someone else." So begins a chapter of Michael Lesy\'s disturbingly satisfying account of Chicago in the 1920s, the epicenter of murder in America. A city where daily newspapers fell over each other to cover the latest mayhem. A city where professionals and amateurs alike snuffed one another out, and often for the most banal of reasons, such as wanting a Packard twin-six. Men killing men, men killing women, women killing men -- crimes of loot and love. Just as Lesy\'s first book, Wisconsin Death Trip, subverted the accepted notion of the Gay Nineties, so Murder City gives us the dark side of the Jazz Age. Lesy\'s sharp, fearless storytelling makes a compelling case that this collection of criminals may be the progenitors of our modern age.
Critic Reviews
“"[Has] the archaic strangeness of myth."”
"Gripping and horrifying." -- Chicago Tribune
-- The Atlantic
"A magnificent read." -- Dayton Daily News
About the Author
Michael Lesy's books include Angel's World and Long Time Coming. In 2006 he was named one of the first United States Artists Fellowship recipients, and in 2013 was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. A professor of literary journalism at Hampshire College; he lives in Massachusetts.
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