Check out these Midwest-related books that I've read recently:
The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych by Doug Wilson-Living in the Detroit area during 1976 meant you could hardly escape the story of a quirky ballplayer who quickly rose to Major League Baseball fame, and who just as quickly saw it all end when his pitching arm went dead. Wilson talks with Fid's family and old friends, people who know him during the heady days of Birdmaina and who loved and appreciated him before and after his quick ride to fame and back. The author contends that Fidrych was likely victim of sports medicine's inability to correctly diagnose and correct the physical problem with his pitching arm during the late 1970s and that later advances in the field might have been able to save his pitching arm. The book was a little sad for me as I knew the ending, but it still brought back some fond memories.
Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes by John Rosengren-This is a great look at Detroit and baseball in the 1930s and 1940s, and I remember my mom saying that he was one of her favorite players when she was a young girl. Greenberg's story is one about life as the first well known Jewish professional athlete and as a real role model for his young fans, particularly those in his religious community. It is also the story of overcoming the difficulties of dealing with vicious anti-Semitism and reconciling a devotion to baseball with a devotion to faith and his family. The author makes the case for Greenberg as one of baseball's greatest players and feels fans today might better remember him had his playing days not been interrupted by his service in the armed forces during World War II, forcing him to finish his career with a late-life comeback.
City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster that Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist-July of 1919 was more than eventful for the Windy City, starting with a spectacular crash of a flaming blimp into a bank building and culminating with a violent race riot. Other events examined in this book include the murder of a young girl, a transit strike that paralyzed the city, and the machinations of a political machine pushing the fortunes of Mayor Big Bill Thompson and his vision of Chicago as a thoroughly modern city. The blimp crash was one of the first major aviation disasters, and the race riot was one of the worst urban incidents up until that time. The book is fascinating, but a bit depressing in what it reveals about the mindset of people of that era and their motivations. The events over that 12-day span had a lasting effect on Chicago, its character, the way it did business for the years to come and the largely unrealized dream of famed architect Daniel Burnham and his plan for Chicago as a City Beautiful.
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore-Chicago writer Moore tells a story based on childhood memories of his older female relatives and a desire to celebrate enduring friendships. The central characters in this novel are three women who meet as high school students in southern Indiana during the 1960s. The book follows them through more than four decades of love, heartbreak, hardship and joy as the thread of their strong friendship binds them together and supports them through the years. "The Supremes" earned their nickname from Big Earl, the owner of the uniquely named "All-You-Can-Eat" restaurant where the trio holds court every Sunday afternoon through the years at a window table.
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin-The Indianapolis-born author, who currently lives in Chicago, offers this fictionalized biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Anne, much better known as wife of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, was also a pioneering aviatrix and writer. This is also the story of a woman whose life revolved around her husband and his career. The man who was the first to fly cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in 1927 comes across here as cold, unfeeling and who isn't able to understand the nuances of human behavior and relationships. Even as his reputation suffered in later years, tarnished by his enthusiasm for the isolationist cause during World War II and his anti-Semitic views, Anne stood by him. She also supported him even as she learned about his many extra-marital affairs and the seven children born of those relationships. Still, Anne never seems to lose her love for Charles and his legend and sees a hint of his heart even as she discovers herself, her own career, and a late-in-life lover along the way. Particularly interesting to me were the parts of the book covering the scandalous kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh's first child in the 1930s and its probable effect on the couple and their later life choices.
Alice I have Been by Melanie Benjamin-The Indianapolis-born Benjamin bases this novel on the life of Alice Liddell, the model for Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". The real-life Alice was a free spirit born into a strict and proper Victorian-era family. Alice lived with her family at Oxford, where her father was president of the university. She formed a friendship with a teacher and photographer there named Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll). Alice became his muse and photographic subject. The young girl's family misunderstood the friendship between the two at best, and the relationship, as it reads in this book, became discomforting and seemingly inappropriate in some way. The book certainly left me with questions about whether both Liddell and Dodgson wanted more out of it. Several other historical figures don't come off well here, either. Benjamin's book tells of Alice's life beyond her ill-fated childhood relationship with Dodgeson and her eventual embrace of the fictional Alice in Wonderland and her part in creating that story.
Clark Gable in Pictures: Candid Images of the Actor's Life by Chrystopher J. Spicer-I didn't know about the Midwest connections in the life of legendary actor Clark Gable's life before picking up this book. The first chapter details Gable's birth and earliest days in Cadiz, a small town in south eastern Ohio near the West Virginia border. It was also interesting to learn that actress Carole Lombard, one of Gable's true loves who he married and then lost when she died in a plane crash while doing World War II support work, was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gable also had many cool cars over the course of his life, and I remember reading about the Duesenberg cars he drove during the 1930s when we visited the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Indiana. It was fun to see a couple of those cars here in the book's "Fast Life" chapter. This book is mostly photos with detailed captions, but it is an especially fun read for fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved<br
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