I Sailed with Magellan

Following his renowned The Coast of Chicago and Childhood, story writer Stuart Dybek returns with eleven masterful and masterfully linked stories about Chicago''s fabled and harrowing South Side. United, they comprise the story of Perry Katzek and his widening, endearing clan. Through these streets walk butchers, hitmen, mothers and factory workers, boys turned men and men turned to urban myth. I Sailed With Magellan solidifies Dybek''s standing as one of our finest chroniclers of urban America. Stuart Dybek is also the author of two collections of short fiction, The Coast of Chicago and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods , as well as two volumes of poetry, Streets in Their Own Ink and Brass Knuckles . His writing has been frequently anthologized and has appeared in numerous periodicals, including The New Yorker , The Atlantic Monthly , Harper''s , Poetry , The Paris Review , and TriQuarterly . A professor of English at Western Michigan University, he lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A New York Times Notable Book A Booklist Editors'' Choice A Chicago Tribune Best Book An American Library Association Notable Book Winner of the Society of Midland Authors Adult Fiction Award From the prizewinning American author Stuart Dybek comes a major new work of fiction: a novel-in-stories, eleven masterful tales told by a single voice of remarkable narrative power. I Sailed with Magellan depicts various characters of irrepressible vitality amid the stark neighborhoods of Chicago''s South Side, where our hero, the restless Perry Katzek, transforms his daily experiences into lush, imaginative adventures. In each of Dybek''s intertwined episodes there is remarkable music. The book''s dialogue and descriptive prose both reveal the rhythm of a street culture captured in all its emotional depth and unexpected humor: a man takes his young nephew to a string of taverns, where the boy sings for his uncle''s bourbon; a small-time thug is distracted from making a hit by the mysterious reappearance of several ex-girlfriends; two unemployed youths hatch a scheme to finance their road trip to Mexico by selling orchids stolen from the rich side of town; a young couple''s amorous beach adventure is interrupted when an unexpected visitor washes ashore. As these poignant chapters unfold with sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic results, Perry Katzek grapples with the exotic possibilities that the world offers him, finding them even beneath the often brutal surface of Chicago life. Throughout I Sailed with Magellan we rediscover the captivating storytelling, the sharp and spare prose, and the brilliant dramatization of resilient, inventive humanity that mark Dybek''s work. "Dream and memory, humor and pathos, song and silence: At his best Dybek combines these disparate elements in a shimmering web."'” Philip Connors, Newsday "Genius . . . A modern master . . . Dybek is incapable of writing a dull page."'” Clarence Brown, The Seattle Times "Original, operatic, and unexpected . . . An affecting and eccentrically structured coming-of-age narrative."'” Karen Karbo, Bookforum "Enthralling . . . Includes a remarkable lyricism and structural spontaneity that reimagine the tradition [of] the Chicago novel . . . Dybek opens up the life of a working-class urban immigrant family with an emotional complexity and acuity that has few parallels."'” Tom Montgomery-Fate, The Boston Globe "These [connected stories] take on the weight and resonance, and cumulative power, of the best novels."'” Mick Cochrane, The Buffalo News "With I Sailed with Magellan Dybek solidifies his reputation as the rightful heir to [James T.] Farrell''s gritty realism; his stories remind us that despite Americans'' ambivalence over urban life, exemplified by the flight to suburbs and the Sun Belt, the old brick-and-asphalt city remains a productive crucible of human drama, the place where an open fire hydrant or a sudden thunderstorm can seem as if it might ''drown the innocent and guilty alike.''"'” Albert Mobi

Stuart Dybek is the author of two collections of short fiction, The Coast of Chicago and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, as well as a volume of poetry, Brass Knuckles. A professor of English at Western Michigan University, he lives in Kalamazoo.