The Coast of Chicago

The stolid landscape of Chicago suddenly turns dreamlike and otherworldly in Stuart Dybek's classic story collection. A child's collection of bottle caps becomes the tombstones of a graveyard. A lowly rightfielder's inexplicable death turns him into a martyr to baseball. Strains of Chopin floating down the tenement airshaft are transformed into a mysterious anthem of loss. Combining homely detail and heartbreakingly familiar voices with grand leaps of imagination, The Coast of Chicago is a masterpiece from one of America's most highly regarded writers. "Establishes [Dybek] not merely as a talent but as a magician comparable to Eudora Welty and Joy Williams." --Chicago Tribune "Has claim to comparison with Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Joyce's Dubliners... Dybek's energetic prose produces dazzling effects." --Chicago Sun-Times "Irresistible... Mr. Dreiser, Mr. Farrell, Mr. Bellow, Mr. Algren, please say hello to Stuart Dybek. He's one of yours." --The Village Voice "Moving and real and often brilliantly ambitious." --Los Angeles Times "Tender and unforgiving... No matter where you grew up, after reading these stories you'll have found the coast of Chicago." --San Francisco Chronicle "Stuart Dybek translates extreme and fantastic events into a fabulous dailyness, as though the extraordinary were everywhere around us if only someone would tell us where to look. He lets us see the unforeseen not by stratagem but by art. Dybek is a wonderful writer of wonderful stories." --Geoffrey Wolff "A narrative that is intelligent, lyrical and as insightful as a revelation... The Coast of Chicago is an inventive, daring book that pleases the ear, challenges the mind, and transforms a bit of everyone's past from the mundane to the magical." --Orlando Sentinel CONTENTS 1. Farwell (previous version as Entry) 2. Chopin in Winter 3. Lights 4. Death of the Right Fielder 5. Bottle Caps (previous version as Corks) 6. Blight 7. Outtakes 8. Bijou 9. Strays 10. Nighthawks 11. The Woman Who Fainted 12. Hot Ice 13. Lost 14. Pet Milk