“I FOUND IT ALL…ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO…”

8/11/10

Yesterday, I talked with Patrick Thomas, editor of The Beverly Review, about my novel, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics, its upcoming sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, and Chicago politics in general. The interview was conducted in preparation for an upcoming article Pat will write in the Review.

Appearing in The Beverly Review is especially gratifying for me because the Review is the paper of the neighborhood in which I grew up and a paper I delivered in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Clearly, it is one of the best neighborhood papers in Chicago, or in the country, and serves a community packed with politically powerful and attuned people, a group that would have especially intense interest in my books. The article should run in the next few weeks. Some of my readers get the Review, but, for those of you who don’t, here is its link:

http://www.beverlyreview.net/

Speaking of the sequel, it should be out late this month or early next. The only misgiving I have about this (if I can say so myself) terrific novel is its price, which is the minimum set by Stafford, the publisher. The paperback will sell for $19.99 and the hardcover (Yes, we have a hardcover this time, primarily in response to those readers who weren’t happy with the quality of the cover of The Chairman; that is another reason I changed publishers for the sequel.) for $29.99, which I think is expensive and for which I apologize in advance. The minimum price was completely out of my hands. On the bright side, the book is definitely worth every penny, especially for those of you who liked The Chairman and wonder what happens next in the life of its dauntless protagonist, Eamon DeValera Collins. But even those who haven’t read The Chairman or found it perhaps a bit too weighty will like the tighter, faster moving plot of The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics. The vocabulary has been toned down a notch or seven and the sequel has a character glossary, which applies to both novels. Further, those of you who have Kindles or other electronic reading devices can buy the sequel at $9.99, only a dollar or so more than the electronic version of The Chairman.

Thanks; I’ll put up post as soon as the sequel is released, but you will hear from me before then.