An interesting if incomplete look at the city I call home. There's more to Chicago than poverty and corruption, right?

My favorite bits were Sandra Cisneros' tribute to her mother, Don DeLillo's tribute to Nelson Algren, and Elaine Showalter's tribute to Jane Adams. But what I'll think about when I think about this issue of Granta, probably forever, is Alex Kotlowitz. His story is about gangs and violence, but it's specifically about the kids who murdered a former coworker of mine, which I didn't know when I bought the book. I don't know what else to say about that, except that the story left me feeling more hopeless and distraught than anything I've read in years.

Chicago has complicated problems.