Returning to his native Chicago after World War II, Nelson Algren found a city transformed. The flourishing industry, culture, and literature that had placed prewar Chicago at center stage in American life were entering a time of crisis. The middle class and economic opportunity were leaving the inner city, and Black Southerners arriving in Chicago found themselves increasingly estranged from the nation's economic and cultural resources. For Algren, Chicago was becoming "an October sort of city even in the spring," and as Carlo Rotella demonstrates, this metaphorical landscape of fall led...

This eloquent, streetwise book is a paean to America's Rust Belt and a compelling exploration of four milieus caught up in a great transformation of city life. With loving attention to detail and a fine sense of historical context, Carlo Rotella explores women's boxing in Erie, Pennsylvania; Buddy Guy and the blues scene in Chicago; police work and crime stories in New York City, especially as they converged in the making of the movie The French Connection; and attempts at urban renewal in the classic mill city of Brockton, Massachusetts. Navigating through accrued layers of cultural,...

From jazz fantasy camp to running a movie studio; from a fight between an old guy and a fat guy to a fear of clowns Carlo Rotella s "Playing in Time "delivers good stories full of vivid characters, all told with the unique voice and humor that have garnered Rotella many devoted readers in the "New York Times Magazine," "Boston Globe, " and "Washington Post Magazine," among others. The two dozen essays in "Playing in Time," some of which have never before been published, revolve around the themes and obsessions that have characterized Rotella s writing from the start: boxing, music, writers,...