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From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods.
The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity—and the breaking point—of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends.
Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 5, 2019 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781984841186
- File size: 284956 KB
- Duration: 09:53:39
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Alex Kotlowitz narrates his audiobook about gun violence in Chicago, and he provides the necessary pathos and emotion you'd expect when an author reads his own work. He has a deep voice and excellent diction, and he knows when to pause for effect, raise or lower his voice for emphasis, and heighten his emotions to make a point. However, he does narrate like a person without vocal training: He trails off at the ends of sentences, can be monotonous at times, finds difficulty in ending sentences emphatically, and can have mushy pronunciations. Even with all of that, this audiobook is a powerful work that focuses on an unconscionable problem, and a great deal of its power comes from the fact that the author narrates. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
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