Elizabeth Berg’s Home Safe Named Great Chicago Novel

ulia Keller, well-known literary critic for the Tribune, published an article this Sunday on the changing form of the Great Chicago novel. Well known Great Chicago novels, such as The Jungle or Sister Carrie, tend to feature the stoicism–both in plot and in characterization–that was a common trope in turn of the 20th century (ish) literature. This kind of literature, according to Keller at least, has come to speak for Chicago and it’s industrial history. Yet she calls for a new type of literature to speak for modern Chicago, and she believes she has found this in Chicago (ish) author Elizabeth Berg’s new novel Home Safe, published by Random House.

“In a beautifully subtle way, it reflects the shift in the city of Chicago from a simple grid of streets, from a matter of longitude and latitude and factories, to an idea. Chicago is no longer just a place to which people come to realize their dreams, large and small. It’s a place in which people live — in the city proper, and in the ever-widening ripple effect of its suburbs. It’s a geographical location, yes, but it’s also a mind-set.”

Read the full article at the Chicago Tribune.