From Coast to Coast: Chicago Authors Stuart Dybek and Thomas Dyja

Stuart Dybek and Thomas Dyja are both award-winning Chicago-born authors. Works by both men have been chosen for the great honor of being a One Book, One Chicago title: We read Dybek's The Coast of Chicago in 2004 and we are currently reading Dyja's The Third Coast.  We’re grateful for their participation in this year’s Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner, held by the Chicago Public Library Foundation on October 21 at The Forum at UIC. Let's take this opportunity to explore more titles from their bodies of work.

Thomas Dyja

Thomas Dyja grew up on the Northwest Side and has explored different angles of American history and culture in his work. The Civil War is at the center of two of his novels, but the stories told in each book are very different. In Play for A Kingdom, battle weary and fragile soldiers on both sides of the conflict lay down their weapons for a series of baseball games.

In Meet John Trow, a man deals with his midlife crisis by getting into Civil War reenactments and being assigned the character of a real private who fought in the conflict.

Walter White, an important figure in the civil rights era and the history of the NAACP, is the main character in two works exploring race in America. Walter White is a biography of the leader.

The Moon in Our Hands is a novel set in 1918 about a young White exposing a small Tennessee town where a lynching has just occurred.

Stuart Dybek

Stuart Dybek grew up in Pilsen, and the Chicago of his youth is recreated in much of his work. He is a master of the short story form and excels at establishing character, mood and a strong sense of place.

I Sailed With Magellan is a novel in 11 episodic stories, mostly featuring Perry Katzek and exploring coming of age on the South Side in the 1950s and 1960s. At times both tender and violent, serious and hilarious, the book tells the story of the city in an unexpected, lyrical and truly beautiful way.

Dybek's two latest books have come out in the last year. The title of Ecstatic Cahoots is taken from a line in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and many of the pieces are very short, some no more than half a page.

Paper Lantern contains more traditional length short stories, and the focus is love and desire.

Have you read any of these books? If so, which one is your favorite?