Elise Biggers

If time has been on anyone’s side for the past two years, author Marcus Sakey is our best bet. After meeting outstanding reviews from literary crime fiction’s largest critics with 2007’s “The Blade Itself,” Sakey has yet again sent his critics on parade with his latest contribution to the genre. Recounting a young married couple’s ascent into an obscene amount of money that places them at a stand-off between time, each other and, not to mention, some of Chicago’s most astute criminals, Sakey’s “Good People” boasts a surreal brush with financial fate gone entirely wrong and relinquishes a series of close encounters with the law and, better yet, his protagonists’ own demise. But Sakey has set a pace for the work, which generates a magnetically horrifying effect on this fiction from all standpoints—ours included. Just as Tom and Anna Reed are dragged from their monotonous existence by a lump sum of cash, they are immediately tailed by one that is both more turbulent and more persistent and are left with only each other and their hopes of reestablishing normalcy. Before long, our familiar “Sweet Home Chicago,” despite genuine description, exchanges its trademark quaintness for modulated indifference to the characters’ predicament, and Sakey accomplishes this well. Chicago’s trademark flair becomes daunting: Navy Pier’s Ferris Wheel—the city’s second hand; Lake Shore Drive—a continuous funeral procession for the passing of the future into the past. Merely midway through the novel, the desire to reach the story’s conclusion makes page-turning a slightly terrifying endeavor.

“Good People,” Marcus Sakey, Dutton, 323 pages, $24.95

(2008-09-02)

Also by Elise Biggers

Life at the Beach
Standing atop one of many white monstrosities on the city’s lakeshore, her clipboard falls to the sand practically unnoticed until a heavy-set youth, sandwich in hand, seizes an opportunity for praise from none other than one of North Avenue’s “finest” by returning the clipboard to its red-clad guardian. Meanwhile, another youth stumbles from the water, snatches his beach towel from the tower’s lower rungs and carries on without a passing glance, trivializing the tower’s occupant and her position of authority
(2008-08-26)

Hands in the Air
Although recent inquiries may prove that J. Edgar Hoover was not a transvestite after all, he still doesn’t have anything on John Dillinger, whose following, either from sheer devotion or anticipation for the release of Michael Mann’s newest feature, couldn’t be stronger. As far as Mike Flores, a local playwright, is concerned, “J. Edgar Hoover was a prude,” and tonight, perhaps all of Lincoln Station will agree, for today marks the seventy-fourth anniversary of John Dillinger’s untimely, unarmed death alongside the Biograph Theater at the hands of a sloppy FBI job. At least that’s how the latest installment of the story unfolds by the ones who love to tell it
(2008-08-05)

Taking the Heat
Lou Mitchell’s opened in 1923, and eighty-six years of favorable reviews and word-of-mouth later, hungry hopefuls still line up at the door, placated by complimentary donuts and Milk Duds, waiting for an even larger portion of “Uncle” Lou’s renowned menu. Once past the threshold, a descent into another ring of the dining circus ensue
(2008-07-29)

Playing Around
“We’re the naked ones. You guys can talk all you want,” a cast member utters during the Living Canvas’ latest production “Unsex Me Here,” which pays tribute to Lady Macbeth’s notorious soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Scottish play; but words, words, mere words encounter a fair share of difficulty generating a description for the group’s nude spin on the Shakespearian standard
(2008-07-29)

Out Intersection
(2008-06-24)

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