Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology

by Martha Bayne (Editor)

Chicago is built on a foundation of meat and railroads and steel, on opportunity and exploitation – but its identity long ago stretched past manufacturing. Today, the city continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization. But the problems that plague the region don’t disappear once you pass the Indiana border. In fact, they’re often amplified. A city defined by movement that’s the anchor of the Midwest, bound to its neighbors by a shared ecosystem and economy, Chicago’s complicated – both of the Rust Belt and beyond it. 
Rust Belt Chicago collects essays, journalism, fiction, and poetry from more than fifty writers who speak both directly and elliptically to the concerns the city shares with the region at large, and the elements that set it apart. With affection and curiosity, frustration, anger, and joy, the writers sing to each other like the bird on the cover. At times the song sings in harmony and at others sounds in notes of strategic dissonance. But taken as a whole, this book sings one song, responding to one cacophonous city.

Genres: Fiction, Essays

232 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2017

About the author

Martha Bayne is a writer and editor based in Chicago. Founder of the Soup & Bread series of hunger-relief fundraisers, she is the author of Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time (Agate/Surrey, 2011), and her features and essays have appeared in Time Out Chicago, Bookforum, the Baffler, the Christian Century, and the Chicago Reader, where she was on staff for ten years.

Reviews

[Michael Van Kerckhove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm proud to be a part of this collection. My nonfiction piece The Pantry is included. Reading it from a distance in my new home in Nashville makes me miss the city on a variety of levels. Shouts out to my friends Kathleen Rooney and David Mathews for their work in the collection. Congratulations to all the writers!

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book helped understand some important features of Chicago I was unfamiliar with before moving here. This work is a collection of short stories, poetry and creative nonfiction. The fiction is enjoyable and the poetry fascinating enough but the nonfiction is just unbearable for a newcomer, due to the endless lists of streets a non-local is unfamiliar with. The different artist pieces vary in structure and content, however I stumbled mostly onto rants against the risks of the city or exaggerated eulogies of the other aspects that make up Chicago. There is no gray middle path.

[Thomas Sadler]

A street-level view of Chicago, written in many voices.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid anthology of essays, poems and fiction about my favorite city, from the familiar areas to far from the beaten path.

[Debi Buzil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Local feast for my Sweet Chicago Soul. Particularly liked essays by @Zoe Zolbrod and @Nora O'Connor who writes about bread from the street I grew up on Devon Ave.

[Ajk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Belt and am trying to learn more about Chicago, and this was a great way to do it. It's got dozens of stories (mostly non-fiction prose, but some poetry and fiction) about the city. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 out of 5 is that the stories aren't very geographically broad. They mostly take place off of Milwaukee Avenue, with some of the same bars and bookstores making multiple appearances.

On one hand, that's predictable: the book weighs towards white Chicagoans who were at their coolest in the 1990s, when Wicker Park was at its coolest. And to be fair, the Anthology does a great job balancing voices of different genders and people of color. But it would be interesting to have gotten more than Wicker, a sprinkling of Pilsen and a bit of the southside. I absolutely loved the stories from Hammond and The Region, I would have loved to have gotten more of that (albeit from Bridgeport, Belmont Cragin, Lawndale, Blue Island) and less of the '90s love, were it up to me.

But it's not up to me, and that's totally okay! It's a great look at what Chicago is, without getting too sniffly about what Chicago maybe was.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some excellent contributions in this anthology. Several others fall flat. I found many of the personal stories compelling, whereas the grand narratives about Chicago were a stretch. For what this anthology attempts to do, however (paint Chicago as a place of intrigue, disappointment, love, etc.), then I would say it does a good job. As anthologies go, some narrative voices are stronger than others, and additional editorial revision would have gone a long way in tidying up moments of literary obfuscation. But I enjoyed this collection very much, and found myself either nodding in agreement, questioning my own experiences as a Chicagoan, or rolling my eyes occasionally for those far-fetched, albeit authentic, personal insights. I think the writers and editor of this anthology did a good job of capitalizing on reflections about Chicago in this historical moment, right now. Although the anthology does not read as a continuous history, neither does it purport to do so. It is fragmented, discontinuous, intriguing and warm, very much like the city and people it so describes.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven collection of essays, fiction, and poetry. There’s a rather Gen-X bent that makes me feel at home, and the better essays remind me of reading Punk Planet. But the coverage is pretty narrow (at least three essays either about country music or by people known for their work in that field) and the themes aren’t well-developed, which makes me think that a local journalism best-of would make better and more informative reading.

[Andre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a fun anthology of stories and poems about old and contemporary Chicago. Not the rust belt snooze-alert that some may think before diving into it. Very easy to pick up and put down, but capturing your attention. I really liked it.

[10thumbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not always the biggest fan of anthologies — just as I start to settle into a story or essay... poof! it’s over. But there is a lot of beautiful writing here — much much more than I anticipated — and it makes me mourn (just a little) not moving back after that breakup.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of essays, short stories and poems centered around Chicago/Chicagoland.

Read this for book club.

Nothing really stood out.

[robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag. I suppose that's what you get with anthologies.

[Emily]

whoops, this has been on my currently reading list for ages, and...I might have misplaced it. Looking forward to picking it up again, it's already shown me a few new sides of the city.