In MID-CENTURY MUSING, fictitious Chicago newspaper columnist Sam Garfield gives readers a reflective and historical look at life in the 1950s.
Books by John Theodore
SHAPING the STORY: AN URBAN NOVEL. ONE CITY, ONE YEAR. Set in 1958 Chicago, the story revolves around Sam Garfield, a Pulitzer-prize winning newspaper columnist who suddenly, at age fifty-two, is forced to take a critical look at himself and his relationships with his mentally ill twin brother, the woman he loves, and the people he writes about… the father who carries guilt because he was “catin’ ‘round, drinkin’ while pre-dawn flames killed all his six children in a tenement fire; a young, talented photographer who becomes sickened by his profession when he photographs a nun carrying a burned victim out of a burning school: “…stuck the camera right in front of that nun and snapped away…might as well been a gun.” Garfield’s middle-aged self-discovery helps him work through past issues in his life and becomes the lens through which he approaches his newspaper columns.
Retired Chicago journalist John Theodore is the author of two non-fiction books. EVIL SUMMER: BABE LEOPOLD, DICKIE LOEB, AND THE KIDNAP-MURDER OF BOBBY FRANKS (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007) received an Illinois Historical Society award. BASEBALL’S NATURAL: THE STORY OF EDDIE WAITKUS (Southern Illinois University Press, 2002) was named “one of the 12 best sports books of 2003” by Booklist.
In BASEBALL…and OTHER ROMANTIC LIFE LESSONS, Theodore weaves fantasy and fact in a reflective and historical collection of essays, columns and short stories.
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