Vietnam

Poetry combining terse yet vivid imagery with a tone that evokes a particular detachment and a kind of sparse beauty.

Stories and prose, some of which originally appeared in periodicals such as Gallimaufry and Uroboros. Reviewed as "startling" and very graphic at times, his work delves into the horrors of Vietnam, the observation and experience of gritty street life, and the themes of alienation and dehumanization.

A vivid memoir by one of the country's best visual chroniclers of courtroom proceedings, offering glimpses of defendants like the Chicago 7 Radicals, the Black Panthers, John Wayne Gacy, the El Rukns, and various mobsters. A unique perspective on local history since the 1960s.

"The stories presented here tell tales of a new Chicago, a Chicago that, like the Scott Mutter montage that fronts this book, is made up of diverse images that suggest new ways of seeing. They provide alternative interpretations of life in the city. What you will find in this collection is a a multi-cultural neighborhood in print, a neighborhood which has yet to surface on Chicago streets, one which is perhaps still years away in a city that touts its culturally plural make-up while still enforcing rigid boundaries between segregated neighborhoods. Murder by industrial pollution (often masked by self-abuse), racism, homophobia, the disintegration of family life, the struggle for control of one's own body and mind, the troubles facing a growing elderly population, the subjugation of minority cultures to the rich, the white, the male, are all issues confronted by the writers of these stories. They speak through a range of voices, creating a new, urgent sense of Chicago Realism. These storytellers provide testimony to a new Chicago, a Chicago that while steeped in American tradition challenges the narrow boundaries of its stereotype. They speak to a changing America, an America that has awakened from decades of a false, prosperity-driven revelry with a reality hangover. They speak of an America that must now begin to turn its attention to the social and environmental problems it has too long ignored." - From the back cover