A Little Reading...

And Writing Too

  As if I needed another reason to miss our home, Sisters, I just finished reading The Devil in the white City. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly encourage it. As promised by every review I read in the Trib and Times, it read more like a novel than the historical work of nonfiction that it is, and although it is, at times, a little psychologically disturbing, it is neither as scary nor gory as I was afraid it would be. It just offers that extra razor edge that makes you want to double check the door at night while you’re reading it. And more than any of that, it makes me so proud to come from a city with such a complex history.

  On the one hand, Sisters, one’s heart absolutely must swell with pride at thinking of the fair the city built at a time when it was honestly inconceivable, and I have newfound appreciation for the infamous Chicago tenacity. We are nothing today to our past! Why, we reversed the flow of a river and built a city to rival our own (Chicago as it existed at that time) in twenty-six months. Nothing short of astonishing.

  And even Dr. H. H. Holmes, as dark and horrible as he was, there is still something about him that nonetheless completes the image of Chicago, unlike any other city, which, of course, has its own share of dangers.

  That is my two-cent book review. I have since moved on to Baudolino by Umberto Eco, although I ought to be reading about the evolution of civilian-military relations. I do wonder how I have time to read, especially since I’ve spent this whole past week “under the weather,” but I have even begun writing again. Tonight, I practiced for NaNoWriMo and wrote 2,049 words for my latest project. It felt wonderful to do, and I can only hope the inspiration lasts. The beginning is always easy, when the story seems fresh, it’s when the conflict comes in that I always struggle and tire and eventually abandon. We shall see though… Maybe I have caught some of that Chicago determination from my reading.