The Coast of Chicago

The stolid landscape of Chicago turns dreamlike and otherworldly in these “miraculous tales . . . a collection for the ages” (Kirkus).

A child’s collection of bottle caps becomes the tombstones of a graveyard. A lowly rightfielder’s inexplicable death turns him into a martyr to baseball. Strains of Chopin floating down the tenement airshaft are transformed into a mysterious anthem of loss.

In these and other stories, Stuart Dybek conjures a Chicago “both ordinary and amazing”. Combining homely detail and heartbreakingly familiar voices with grand leaps of imagination, The Coast of Chicago is a masterpiece from one of America’s most highly regarded writers (The New York Times).