The Coast of Chicago: Stories [Paperback]

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 Chicagois a masterpiece from one of America's most highly regarded writers.

Has claim to comparison with Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Joyce's Dubliners. . .Dybek's energetic prose produces dazzling effects. Chicago Sun-Times

Moving and real and often brilliantly ambitious. Los Angeles Times

A fictional world that is both ordinary and amazing. The New York Times

Irresistible...Mr. Dreiser, Mr. Farrell, Mr. Bellow, Mr. Algren, please say hello to Stuart Dybek. He's one of yours. The Village Voice

Establishes [Dybek] not merely as a talent but as a magician comparable to Eudora Welty and Joy Williams. Chicago Tribune

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 Dybekis the award-winning author ofChildhoodandOther Neighborhoods, I Sailed with Magellan, andBrass Knuckles, a volume of poetry. A professor of English at Western Michigan University, he lives in Kalamazoo.