Many Chicagoans rose in protest over A. J. Lieblingโs tongue-in-cheek tour of their fair city in 1952. Liebling found much to admire in the Windy Cityโs people and cultureโits colorful language, its political sophistication, its sense of its own history and specialness. But Liebling offended that cityโs image of itself when he discussed its entertainments, its built landscapes, and its mental isolation from the worldโs affairs.
Liebling, a writer and editor for the New Yorker, lived in Chicago for nearly a year. While he found a home among its colorful inhabitants, he couldnโt help comparing Chicago with some other cities he had seen and loved, notably Paris, London, and especially New York. His magazine columns brought down on him a storm of protests and denials from Chicagoโs defenders, and he gently and humorously answers their charges and acknowledges his errors in a foreword written especially for the book edition.
Liebling describes the restaurants, saloons, and striptease joints; the newspapers, cocktail parties, and political wards; the university; and the defining event in Chicagoโs mythic past, the Saint Valentineโs Day Massacre. Illustrated by Steinberg, Chicago is a loving, if chiding, portrait of a great American metropolis.
โGood entertainment. The book is attractively designed, the illustrations are first-rate and Mr. Liebling can write.โโNew York Times
โMr. Lieblingโs entertaining book can be highly recommended.โโNew York Herald Tribune
โHe has shown his readers in his lively, sardonic style exactly the split-personality city that he feels Chicago to be.โโSan Francisco Chronicle