Make Me A City:
a novel of Chicago
Overview
How does a place become a city? Whose stories will survive and whose will be lost? How do you know if you truly belong?
It is 1800. On desolate, marshy ground between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, a man builds a house and a city is born …
This masterful debut novel spans Chicago’s tumultuous first century, showing how a city is made: by a succession of vivid, sometimes villainous individuals and their cumulative invention, energy, and vision.
We meet the city’s unacknowledged founder, a descendant of colonisers and slaves; witness the dispersal of the indigenous Native Americans; hear stories of an entrepreneur, an engineer, a courageous female reporter, and a corrupt alderman; and track the lives of immigrants from all over the world, as they struggle for acceptance in a country they have built.
Chicago, its inhabitants and its history are brought to dazzling, colourful life in this epic tale that speaks of not just one city but America as a whole, and of how people come to find their place in the world.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Paperback
- 198mm x 129mm
- 512 pages
- 9781912854882
- GBP£9.99
- 11 March 2021
Categories
Awards
- Longlisted for the 2020 ABDA Best Designed Literary Fiction Cover
Praise
‘A sprawling epic … An absorbing fictional chronicle of a city and its place in American history.’
‘There is much of the panache of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas here: it is an epic story that sweeps the reader from a single log-house to a mass of steel-frame skyscrapers. It moves from bloody tragedy to financial skulduggery and farce, all through a subtle variety of narrative voices and perspectives. A notably rich, rewarding read.’
About the Author
In between periods spent living in the UK, Kenya, Gambia, Greece, and Louisiana, USA, Jonathan Carr first visited Chicago in 1983. A graduate of Cambridge University, he has worked as a travel correspondent, a book reviewer, and a teacher of English. He holds a PhD from Bath Spa University in Creative Writing. Make Me A City is his first novel.