LIT 50
Who really books in Chicago

THE NEW GUARD
These are the names that we expect to hear more from later. From Jim DeRogatis, who introduced us to Lester Bangs, and Ted Allen, who taught us all about sex, to Travis Hugh Culley, who reminds us that being a bike messenger isn’t all fun and games.

Ted Allen
In a belching, leering world of laddish magazines and caddish TV shows, it’s nice to know there’s one man, Ted Allen, promoting cool and stylish sophistication. Still, the guide books in Esquire’s “Things A Man Should Know” series (which Allen co-authors with Esquire magazine Executive Editor Scott Olemianuk) are pithy, not prissy. And, besides, someone needs to tell you how to choose a wedding ring, as well as why you should never, ever be caught dead in a ponytail. (Not to mention a bolo tie.) Come June, we’d appreciate it if you learned everything you should know “About Sex” (Hearst Books); and out-of-work techies might want to study up on their business etiquette with a just-penned fourth volume, “About Handshakes, White Lies, and Which Fork Goes Where.” We’re not the only ones who’ve noticed the Chicago Magazine contributing editor’s talents: Allen was nominated this year for a prestigious National Magazine Award, for an Esquire story on men with breast cancer.
Ranking: 27

Jim DeRogatis
Although he’s best known for inspiring readers to hateful invective as the Chicago Sun-Times’ pop and rock music critic, DeRogatis has gradually made a name for himself by taking the art of music writing to another level—the book level. He presently has two in circulation: “Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Rock from the ‘60s to the ’90,” and the much lauded “Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic” (Broadway Books), the latter which suddenly propelled the brash critic to mainstream status—of course, Cameron Crowe’s homage to Bangs in “Almost Famous” didn’t hurt either. We can’t say anything about any potential new books, but we can say that it’s not hard to find material by DeRogatis outside of the Sun-Times, and in the foreseeable future, it should be even easier.
Ranking: 13

Sam Weller
Rarely do reporter and subject hit it off so well that anything happens after the parting handshake. But when Sam Weller interviewed Ray Bradbury last summer for Tribune Magazine, the two struck up a friendship that lead to the sci-fi legend authorizing Weller to write his biography. “If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is,” Weller gushes. “When my mother was pregnant with me, my dad used to read Bradbury’s book ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ to her. I suppose I’ve been a fan since before I was born!” Weller’s wrapping up his research and proposal, and expects his agent will shop the project to book publishers in coming months. And although Weller recently left his post as the Publishers Weekly Midwestern correspondent after three years, he’s still representing the region: His first book, “Secret Chicago” (ECW Press), was the bestselling local travel guide in Chicago last year. (Weller is a regular Newcity contributor)
Ranking: 43

Travis Hugh Culley
With the same swiftness that Travis Hugh Culley presumably pedals packages from business to business as a Chicago bike messenger, his debut nonfiction book, “The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power” (Villard Books) has spun onto the scene. After being on the shelves for a mere five weeks, Culley says the wheels are already in motion for a second printing, and the book was chosen to be in the Barnes & Noble Discovery Series. So, too, was “Class” widely praised by the critics: Booklist called it “One of the very best nonfiction books of recent years.” As far as what the future holds, Culley is “trying to repress a second book, but I don’t think it’s working. When the pen hits the page, little outlines surface.”
Ranking: 49

Elizabeth Berg
It’s been a banner year for Elizabeth Berg. First off, this former registered nurse turned bestselling author relocated to the quiet literary hamlet of Oak Park. For the last few years, she had been splitting time between a home in Massachusetts and her beau in the Windy City — author liaison Bill Young. Then, last August, Berg received the most coveted acknowledgment the book world has to offer. No, not a National Book Award, silly. Sing: O-O-O-Oprah! The big O named Berg’s book, “Open House,” for her on-air book club. With the Oprah effect in full force, Berg’s book went from an initial print run of 50,000 copies to a whopping 750,000. Less than a year later, Berg is ready with her next title, “Never Change,” which The New Yorker has already touted as “timeless.” This woman doesn’t slow down. Maybe she’s getting free motivation talks from Dr. Phil.
Ranking: 25

Aleksander Hemon
It takes quite a bit to register a book on a reputable top ten list, but what if you had to do it writing in a second language? Well, that’s what Hemon did with his first effort, “The Question of Bruno” (Doubleday), a The New York Times Notable Book which also landed on Esquire’s year-end best, earning praise nearly across the board. (Hemon moved to Chicago from Bosnia just before the war nine years ago, and didn’t begin writing in English until shortly thereafter.) His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, McSweeney’s and “The Best American Short Stories 1999” and “2000,” and he is currently at work on a second book, tentatively titled “Nowhere Man.”
Ranking: 37

Joseph T. Hallinan
In “Going up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation” (Random House), Wall Street Journal writer Joseph T. Hallinan depicted a harrowing tour of America’s dysfunctional prison system, which Publishers Weekly proclaimed as “clear-eyed, sleekly written and deeply disturbing... [An] essential portrait of the current state of American justice.” Hallinan clued us in on the near-absence of reform and the disconcerting notion of prisons as highly profitable businesses. Though it’s still early, Hallinan is now traveling the long and tangled road of discussing a plotline with folks in California for an upcoming feature film based on the book. No irony intended, perhaps a future success of a film may bring more attention to the idea of Big Business and Big Prisons as strange bedfellows, along with more deserved spotlight on Pulitzer Prize-winning Hallinan.
Ranking: 39

Sarah Blake
If you haven’t already, meet Sarah Blake. Her neo-Victorian debut novel, “Grange House” (Picador USA) was lauded as a “complex and finely wrought work” by the San Francisco Chronicle and a “pleasing, intricate first novel” by The New York Times, making her one to watch. Set in 1896, the book—which has sold 13,000 copies since July and is now in paperback—is part historical drama, part ghost story, all weathered by the 17-year-old heroine, Maisie Thomas. Blake, a Ph.D. in Victorian Literature, academia escapee and Evanston resident, split her time between writing and being a mom for more than four years to complete “House.” Currently, she is busy at work on a second, non-Victorian (“I had to get out from under the spell of those long, languorous sentences,” she says) book set on Cape Cod in the forties.
Ranking: 48

Miles Harvey
Miles Harvey isn’t a household name—yet. Shouldn’t be too long though, considering the success of his debut “The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime” (Random House). Since its September release, the book has sold more than 50,000 copies (spending some time on The New York Times’ extended bestseller list) and was a finalist for the Borders Original Voices Award for nonfiction. And let’s not neglect to mention its well-earned spot on many of 2000’s top ten lists, including USA Today’s and the Sun-Times’. Harvey has also turned out some fifteen children’s books for Franklin Watts and Children’s Press over the years, and contributes to Outside magazine and In These Times. And get ready: he’s working on new proposals right now, and if they’re half as interesting as “Island,” he’s definitely going to put himself on the map.
Ranking: 42

Rick Bayless
Over the years, Bayless has garnered the reputation as the American head honcho of Mexican cooking, beginning with his PBS series, “Cooking Mexican,” in the late seventies, and solidifying with his classic 1987 cookbook, “Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.” Last summer, Bayless debuted his latest public television series, “Mexico: One Plate at a Time,” with the companion book (Scribner), now in its second printing and heralded on the top ten lists of Amazon.com and the L.A. Times. On deck is a cookbook written with daughter Lanie, as well as shooting the second half of “One Plate at a Time.”
Ranking: 34

Steve Monroe
Don’t let his job as a real estate broker at Grubb & Ellis fool you. Steve Monroe isn’t just a regular guy—unless a regular guy is defined by selling a book and its screenplay to Talk Miramax in one fell swoop. “I came in through the back door,” Monroe explains of selling “’57, Chicago.” A Beverly Hills friend of Monroe’s showed the manuscript to a young producer, Mark Mower, and in no time, “’57, Chicago” had an accompanying screenplay, and Talk Miramax was all over it like white on rice. The book, set in, well, 1957 Chicago, is an old-school bluster and bookies tale of the world of gambling gone wrong. Monroe, a long-time better who’s just recently put the kibosh on his dice, says he wrote the book during “nights and weekends” for three years because he wanted to “put a bookie through the hell that I’ve been through.” Indeed. His book focuses on a bookie’s nightmare: the triple-overtime spar between NCAA’s Kansas Jayhawks and the North Carolina Tar Heels during the tournament semi-finals. So far, “’57, Chicago” has earned raves from USA Today, Esquire and Publishers Weekly. The next ace up his sleeve? “’46, Chicago,” revolving around the “policy rackets, an illegal numbers game.” The odds are with him.
Ranking: 47

LIT 50
Who really books in Chicago

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