Customer Reviews

Neighborhood

5 star:		(4)
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This book captures the reality of living in Berwyn and Cicero and celebrates the lives of the working-class members of society sometimes so easily overlooked and forgotten. It also explains why these individuals wanted to keep their small, close-knit communities from becoming like the old "changing" neighborhoods in the city of Chicago (which many of them fled). A tribute to the real "working class." It's a must for anyone who wants to delve into the lives of the butcher, baker and other entrepreneurs of a very special era in America's history. It will give you a much deeper appreciation of their struggles and fight to preserve what they built and loved.

Grew up in Cicero in the late 40's and early 50's. This will bring back many memories for you. Writing style is very smooth. You feel the author is just carrying on a converstion with you.

Norb Blei writes in a terrific conversational manner, with an authentic Chicago accent. His people are real, the folks who populated a once-thriving working-class Eastern European ethnic neighborhood similar to the one in which I grew up. Folks who worked hard to make a good life for their family, to give back to their community, around which their world revolved. They tell their stories in their own words, a little bit rough around the edges, full of truth and wisdom and wisecracks and unadulterated opinion. You'll really like these people, you'll admire them wholeheartedly, and you'll thank Mr. Blei for telling their stories before their stories sadly would be gone forever.

Do yourself a favor. Get to know whom critics are calling the "troubadour and minstrel" of writing, "celebrating what he has seen and heard and felt in a deceptively simple style." Mr. Blei is one heckuva writer, with heart, compassion, and respect for his topic, and he tells it true. A dose of full-blooded nostaglia, served straight up. And wonderful medicine for those admittedly homesick.

anyone who grew up in chicago or spent time there as i did in the 50's and 60's will really enjoy this. my memories of grandma's brownstone in cicero and shopping and visiting in the neighborhood were all brought back. what a wonderful memory