CHILDHOOD AND OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS

by Stuart Dybek ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1979

Stories and sketches, verismo chunks of muscular Chicago reality: boys bringing a dying immigrant grandmother a jar of outlawed duck's blood soup; tales of ragmen; teenage car escapades; adolescent artists-in-bud; the ""basic principle of Catholic education--the Double Reverse: 1) suspect what they teach you; 2) study what they condemn."" Set mostly in poor milieus, Polish or black or Puerto Rican, the sketches generally have a lurid effectiveness just a step or two beyond total believability. But all of Dybek's range and flair works together in the final story, ""The Apprentice,"" in which a truant boy courses through the city in the constant company of his crazy, ex-taxidermist uncle; together they collect dead-on-the-road animals destined for an imaginary restaurant the uncle claims to supply and which caters to displaced-person gourmets--a metaphor the boy doesn't appreciate for a while (and neither do we, right off). The uncle is full, in fact, of metaphors, lovely and outsized ones; and the story's climax reaches a literal (bridge-climbing) height and arc, as well as a symbolic one, that's absolutely superb. It crowns a collection (badly titled, unfortunately) that's otherwise strong and busy but--unlike that last, wonderful story--less than enthralling.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979

ISBN: 0226176584

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION