It's a series of short stories about various happening in Chicago from the 20's, and each story is told by a journalistic view. However, the interesting thing about this journalist is the way he writes in a story like manner. Honestly, it was a little hard for me to get used to because the writing style was so different than what I was used to, but it managed to keep me reading it. It helped that there were a lot of hand drawn pictures that went with each story, which isn't something I see very often anymore.
Hecht has a very choppy sort of writing style. For example, on page 198, he writes:
"Her face. Oh yes, poor girl, she worked too hard. But what could she do? Only work."
This sort of writing is consistent throughout the book, but I thought that this line was a very good representation of his writing as a whole. His narration seems to switch from observations to personal comments and/or what others are saying around him regarding the subject. It makes the reading a bit confusing, but at the very least, it always kept me guessing.
His name rang a bell and after a quick google search, there he was with his impressive quote, "I found the stuff of literature in city life". He was known for being an interpreter of the news on which he reported-- I wonder if his literary style could be considered a pre-cursor to the New Journalism wave of the sixties and seventies?
ReplyDeleteGood stuff!
Lauren