In line with my upcoming panel with other writers who’ve written books about Chicago (Saturday, Dec. 2, 11 a.m., The Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St.), I made a list of some “great (Chicago) books” — off the top of my head.

Naturally, I got the top of my head taken off.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur? A play and a movie (not a novel), but one of the funniest you’ll ever experience. (The movie, in black and white with Cary Grant and Roz Russell, turns star reporter Hildy Johnson from a charming rogue to a charming rogue-ette, but for once it’s OK. The movie is almost as much of a delight as the play.) This story has extra resonance for me, because it’s about the old hell-raising keyhole-journalism days in Chicago — something I was in on at the tail end — and it takes place in the Criminal Courts press room, a place I actually worked briefly. Also, the character “Bensinger” is modeled on one of my City News Bureau bosses, the late Larry Mulay. Larry was a compulsive hand-washer, phobic about germs. Story goes that when he was a kid covering Criminal Courts, Larry used to de-germ his telephone by swabbing the mouthpiece with benzene … and that’s how the character got the name “Bensinger”.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked Sandra Cisneros, the bard of the Mexican-American experience in Chicago? Her big book is her first novel The House on Mango Street, which I have not read, but I did read Caramelo, her memoir of her childhood with frequent car trips back to Mexico, and how Mexico and Chicago mooshed together in her child mind. It is heartfelt, full of great characters (trust a novelist to make people more interesting on the page than they probably were in life), and written with the touch of a poet.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (also a play and later a rather ground-breaking 1961 movie featuring an all-star black cast including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Lou Gossett Jr.)? Especially since Lorraine Hansberry’s father reportedly played a major role in the “kitchenetting” of the black Bronzeville ghetto. The story is recounted in the historical Afterword of my novel To Love Mercy (pp. 260-262).

Others overlooked:

· The great, untouchable Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Chicago. Screw Carl Sandburg. Read “The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shuffle.” Then read “In the Mecca.” A great regret of my life is that I never met Ms. Brooks, and that she died (in 2000) without reading To Love Mercy.

· The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s 1906 expose of conditions at the Chicago Stock Yards that led to passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and creation of the FDA.

· Anything by Cyrus Colter. Colter, who died in 2002, was a professor at Northwestern. His most-often-cited title is The Beach Umbrella, a story collection. He is said to be one of the best interpreters of the African-American experience. He’s pretty obscure, I’m afraid, but he is high on my must-read list.

· The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Sam Greenlee. I don’t know anything about this one, but if Marilyn Hollman says it’s good, you gotta believe her. More Marilyn picks: Norman McClean (but I thought he wrote about rivers running through things, and I’m sure he wasn’t writing about the Chicago River), Edna Ferber (the Giant lady), and “An American Romance by John Casey, set in Hyde Park and Iowa City — one of the best novels about the Midwest ever.”

· Mr. Achilles by Jeannette Lee (1912). A novel about a Greek immigrant, one I hadn’t heard of until Mairi Breen Rothman brought it to my attention. I Wiki’d it and it sounds like it qualifies for my list.

· Davida Kristy submits The Time Traveler’s Wife by Seena Jeter Naslund, a hot current author. It is set partly in Chicago (the protagonist is a librarian at The Newberry Library!), but I dunno — sounds to me like the Chicago setting is rather incidental. Still, the woman is right about V.I. Warshawski — she’s a P.I., not a cop. I stand corrected. Thanks, Dee.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Last night I spoke to the book club at the Edgebrook branch of the Chicago Public Library. All but one of the 12-15 attendees had read To Love Mercy. Great questions, great comments. Almost everyone loved it, and for the right reasons. What bliss.

P.P.S. Tonight I’m in the Northtown branch of the CPL (and actually sitting in said library writing this). The topic is “How to get your first book published.” Hope you’ll come out in the rain and catch me — Northtown is at 6435 N. California. Then onward to:

· Barnes & Noble-Old Orchard, Skokie, Thursday Nov. 30, 7 pm
· Borders, 1144 Lake St., Oak Park, Friday Dec. 1, 7 pm
· Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, Chicago, Saturday Dec. 2, 11 am
· Centuries & Sleuths, 7419 W. Madison, Forest Park, Saturday Dec. 2, 2 pm
· Chicago Sinai Congregation, Sunday Dec. 3, 10:30 am
· Evanston (IL) Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Monday Dec. 4, 7 pm
· Chicago Ridge (IL) Public Library, 10400 S. Oxford Ave., Tuesday Dec. 4, 7 pm
· Blackstone branch, Chicago Public Library, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave., Wednesday Dec. 5, 7 pm