Chi boy : Native sons and Chicago reckonings / Keenan Norris.
Material type:
TextSeries: MachetePublisher: Columbus : Mad Creek Books, an imprint of The Ohio State University Press, [2022]Description: viii, 228 pages ; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780814258538
- 0814258530
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 818.603 N856 | Available | 33111010945000 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In Chi Boy, Keenan Norris melds memoir, cultural criticism, and literary biography to indelibly depict Chicago--from the Great Migration to the present day--as both a cradle of black intellect, art, and politics and a distillation of America's deepest tragedies. With the life and work of Richard Wright as his throughline, Norris braids the story of his family and particularly of his father, Butch Norris, with those of other black men--Wright, Barack Obama, Ralph Ellison, Frank Marshall Davis--who have called Chicago home. Along the way he examines the rise of black street organizations and the murders of Yummy Sandifer and Hadiya Pendleton to examine the city's status in the cultural imaginary as "Chi-Raq," a war zone within the nation itself. In Norris's telling, the specter of violence over black life is inescapable: in the South that Wright and Butch Norris escaped, in the North where it finds new forms, and worldwide where American militarism abroad echoes brutalities at home. Yet, in the family story at the center of this unforgettable book, Norris also presents an enduring vision of hope and love.
Includes bibliographical references.
Origin stories -- Exodus archive: first- and second-wave migration, WWI-1960s -- Death in Paris: 1960 -- On the shore: 1961-2016 -- Chi-Raq does not exist: 2017, 1968, 1970, 2021 -- Epilogue: Truth and reconciliation.
"Personal essays about the author's family woven together with cultural history and critique about the Great Migration to Chicago, Northern segregation, the life and work of Richard Wright and other Black Chicago intellectuals, Black masculinity, and the specter of violence in Chicago"-- Provided by publisher.