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The Wagon And Other Stories From The City (2010)

by Martin Preib(Favorite Author)

3 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0226679802 (ISBN13: 9780226679808)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

University of Chicago Press

review 1: I have a fondness for young struggling writers--was once myself--and Preib fits the bill. After bouncing around from job to job, he became a Chicago cop and ended up in a unit that picked up and investigated dead bodies. His essays on that experience are bracing but superbly done, quite unlike any TV shows featuring forensics units. Unfortunately, Preib is already jaded enough without the cop experience and his only refuge seems to be literature.
review 2: Officer Prieb, like many of us, has held many service-oriented jobs; not just as a way to pay the bills, but as a way to peer brazenly into the mysterious eyes of The Other. I feel compelled to point out to those who may be snobbishly put off by his job as a cop: this is a man who has read and REALLY GETS Me... morelville and Whitman. He hears a Greek chorus in the autumn leaves as he approaches a charred corpse. He is a Chicago cop who has studied Latin and who presents the brutal, beautiful city I both love and hate in a light that is more unforgiving and holy than any author I've read.His essays begin with stories of removing the dead-- transporting the corpses of strangers to the morgue. I've had more than a few encounters with Chicago cops, given my profession (librarian in a rough neighborhood) so I'm both thrilled and filled with hope to see that this is not another shock-fest, spill the dirt expose of corruption on the force (though I'd never pretend that I haven't read and enjoyed those books.) This is a darkly gorgeous meditation on the weight and meaning of art and experience. It never oozes sluggishly into clichéd Noirisms. This writing bares and bears too much to wink at us then dance glibly off into predictability. I'm facing the beginning of another interminable, gray, bitter Chicago winter. I will continue to see ugly things that make me yearn to move: perhaps to a yuppie suburb, perhaps to somewhere where it is always spring. Preib's work has reminded me of the way the city has shaped me, and reminded me of why I'll never move, despite the ugliness and the wind and the gray salt stains that the melting, filthy snow leaves on all of my clothes. Talented writers show us meaning. Talented librarians know their patrons and can lead them to books, like this one, that can bare the weight of life and death, thus making them more bearable. And despite the fact that those autumn leaves sing of death, it is a beautiful song and(if I may tweak some Keats) Beauty is truth and life. less

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