As the weather has gotten warmer, my neighborhood has gotten louder: music playing, people talking and laughing outdoors, car afficionados revving the engines on cars that have been garaged through the winter. As a kid, the summer seemed endless and filled with infinite possibilities. Even as an adult with a day job I go to rain or shine, the warm months feel like opportunities. A lot can happen in a summer, and that holds true for the people in Alex Kotlowitz’s An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago.
Kotlowitz’s stated goal is to capture a summer in Chicago, which, with over 14,000 killed and another 60,000 wounded by gun violence since 2000, is one of the deadliest cities in the U.S. It is that section of the city’s population he looks at specifically: those affected by gun violence. No birthday parties with ponies and Slip-N-Slides or Little League Championships here. In truth, I did expect some of that sort of narrative, a mix of the silly and sentimental and the serious like in Gene Weingarten’s One Day. That thwarted expectation was more afterthought than lingering disappointment, though, as the varied narratives wove themselves together.
There are grieving mothers and regretful former gangsters; there are kids already entering the system and kids whose thin support system is doing everything to keep them from slipping into a life of crime and retaliation. There are too many people and threads to give even a cursory summery of their stories, and the discovery is part of the fun, anyway. But one of the stories that has stayed with me the strongest is about two prickly teenagers and the school social worker who has all but adopted them. Both have seen more than they should have in a lifetime, let alone in childhood, and the cracks are starting to show. The weight of so much trauma only gets heavier when one is killed in a random act of violence and the other is suspected by some of having gotten in with the wrong people and causing the shooting. It is heartbreaking and hopeless, and, like the social worker, all you really want to do is give these kids a hug.
The theme of trauma and PTSD is strong, though I don’t think that’s something Kotlowitz pulled out for the narrative. Rather, it is a constant presence in virtually every story, both present and easily traceable in the past. Violence is a cycle, bringing hurt and anger and sadness, and because anger is the most socially acceptable of the three, it often wins out and leads to more violence. Without something to interrupt it, it can—and we see that it does—continue for generations, but the resources to interrupt it are usually hard to find in the neighborhoods affected most—and often insufficient when they are there.
While An American Summer can be hard to read at times, it’s not hopeless. Nor are the people Kotlowitz writes about reduced to stereotypes. Rather, he has clearly taken the time to build the relationships that foster vulnerability. The people feel like people and their stories feel nuanced, neither of which is easy in a work so sprawling as this. Whether the people themselves would agree with their depiction in these pages, I was moved and have found myself thinking about those around me with more grace than before.
Ring Reads 