Small-sized reviews, raves, and recommendations.

The short stories that comprise Where Marshland Came to Flower, by Peter Anderson, focus on Chicago neighborhoods during and after The Great Recession. Published in 2018 by Kuboa, it is far less weird than his previous book, 2013’s Wheatyard (also Kuboa). In a series of small vignettes, Anderson presents small-scale stories of every triumph and tragedy. “Hope and Change” takes place in the northwest neighborhood of Hermosa. The simple plot involves a young man campaigning for Obama talking with an older conservative gentleman. It delves into the mindset of both individuals and the political issues of the day. Yet I wouldn’t characterize it as a “political story,” at least not in the same sense as more ideologically zealous fiction like Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Rand and Sinclair had a point to make and it was usually made with all the subtlety of a cartoon mallet upon the cranium. “Hope and Change” isn’t that at all.

While the content of the short stories would shed some light upon Anderson’s political views, that’s not really the point. Reading only those authors who vote the same way as you do seems really boring. “Hope and Change” represents a by-gone age (at least with my individual bias of age and retrospection) when “politics” meant two opposing side attempting to solve the same issue with talk and bargaining and compromise. Unlike today with social media avatars ping-ponging empty-headed slogans at one another. Because that is what the young man and old man do: they talk to each other. The campaigner will probably not change the old man’s ideas or voting habits, but talking to each other is still more productive and better for civilization than “winning” an argument on whatever social media platform one trolls and doomscrolls.

“Nobody Else” takes place in the far southwest neighborhood of Garfield Ridge. It follows Violet, a “jack-of-all-trades at Go Cartage, she did everything from dispatching to invoicing to collection calls.” In need of money, she asks her boss, Mr. Abrams, for a loan. Anderson captures the unforgiving Chicago weather when he describes Violet at a Cicero bus stop: “The air was cold and raw, the sleet of the afternoon having stopped but the dampness still lingering, the wind off the wet asphalt sending a chill through her.” As a lifelong Wisconsin resident, I experienced days like those. It is in those descriptions of people and the weather that Anderson captures the sense of place with these Chicago stories. Despite it being a Midwestern megalopolis and a national transportation hub, Lake Michigan is an ever-present force, shaping both the city’s cartography (itself a massive seeming-never-ending grid of streets and buildings), but also a city where the Lake will effect the weather (the Windy City’s wind chills).

These stories and others depict in miniature the lived lives of Chicago residents. It is deftly observed kitchen sink realism that feels neither worn-out or derivative. Working-class struggles intermingle with the Bigger Issues economic or otherwise. Where Marshland Comes to Flower by Peter Anderson is highly recommended for those who love the art of the short story and the continuing literary legacy of Chicago.