The Back Page: Literary Chicago.
Ott, Bill (author).
FEATURE.
First published June 1, 2009 (Booklist).
Joyce Saricks, who was kind enough to write the introduction to ALA Editions’ recently released compilation of Back Page columns, has been encouraging me for years to do more quizzes in this space. (What, she doesn’t like my prose?) Joyce just doesn’t realize that quizzes are too damn hard to do. Yes, you don’t have to write as many words, but you do need to do research, something I can never seem to manage. Opinions are easy, but facts are hard, and quizzes, regrettably, need to be based on facts. Verifying those persnickety facts requires rummaging around for authentication, and on the night before a column is due—my preferred writing time—one’s rummaging options are limited. (Yes, I know, you can google anything, but too often my googling leaves me with only half a fact when I need the thing entire.) So, Joyce, I’m sorry, but quizzes are too demanding for a weary editor like me to produce with anything like the frequency you crave. Still, you did write that introduction, and a favor deserves acknowledgment.
So here, at long last, is a quiz—not just any quiz but one that celebrates literary Chicago, a topic that should be of interest to many of the 20,000 librarians who will be here next month to attend ALA’s Annual Conference. Chicagoans, of course, enjoy a long and illustrious literary tradition, one that reaches from Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris through Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway and on to Saul Bellow and Nelson Algren and on still further to Sandra Cisneros, Sara Paretsky, and many, many others. It’s hardly a challenge to match these authors with their titles set in Chicago, but it may prove just a bit harder to combine those pairings with a neighborhood, a landmark, or an event in Chicago history that plays a significant role in each book.
Along with the literary lights above, we’ve included works set in the Chicago area by writers not usually associated with our city and its suburbs (Philip Roth and Somerset Maugham), books by Booklist staffers (Ilene Cooper and Keir Graff), and a real curiosity: a novel whose setting is ALA’s publishing department. Thankfully, Booklist plays no role in this roman a clef, but at least one of our staffers does appear in the book. Extra credit goes to anyone who can identify the character in the novel who was based on Books for Youth Editorial Director Laura Tillotson (before she worked here, that is). A note on strategy: be careful, many of these locations overlap, but there is only one right answer for each question. A perfect score earns a beer on me at Billy Goat Tavern, a location that would have appeared in this quiz if Saturday Night Live skits counted as literature. (Click here to open a PDF. —Ed.)
Authors
1. Philip Roth
2. Nelson Algren
3. Adam Langer
4. Blue Balliet
5. Saul Bellow
6. Leslie Stella
7. Richard Peck
8. Kris Nelscott
9. Eleanor Taylor Bland
10. Sara Paretsky
11. Aleksandar Hemon
12. Sandra Cisneros
13. Meyer Levin
14. Keir Graff
15. Ilene Cooper
16. Eliott Asinof
17. Frank Norris
18. Fredric Brown
19. Stuart Dybek
20. Michael Harvey
21. Richard Wright
22. Achy Obejas
23. Lorraine Hansberry
24. David Mamet
25. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
26. Somerset Maugham
Titles
a. Letting Go
b. The Man with the Golden Arm
c. Crossing California
d. Chasing Vermeer
e. The Adventures of Augie March
f. Fat Bald Jeff
g. Fair Weather
h. Smoke-Filled Rooms
i. See No Evil
j. Fire Sale
k. The Lazarus Project
l. The House on Mango Street
m. Compulsion
n. My Fellow Americans
o. Sam I Am
p. Eight Men Out
q. The Pit
r. The Fabulous Clipjoint
s. The Coast of Chicago
t. The Chicago Way
u. Native Son
v. Days of Awe
w. A Raisin in the Sun
x. Sexual Perversity in Chicago
y. The Front Page
z. The Razor’s Edge
Locations
A. University of Chicago
B. Division Street
C. West Rogers Park
D. University of Chicago Lab School
E. Humboldt Park
F. ALA Publishing Department
G. Chicago World’s Fair
H. 1968 Democratic Convention
I. Waukegan
J. South Chicago
K. Maxwell Street
L. Bucktown
M. Hyde Park
N. Uptown
O. Evanston
P. Chicago Black Sox scandal
Q. Chicago Board of Trade
R. Near North Side
S. Pilsen
T. Lincoln Park
U. South Side
V. East Rogers Park
W. Washington Park
X. Rush Street
Y. Cook County Jail
Z. Lake Forest