David Mamet is best know as the playwright behind such award-winning plays as Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-plow, and American Buffalo. Chicago is his fourth novel but his first in eighteen years. The winding plot follows newspaper reporter Mike Hodge as he attempts to solve a string of gang-related murders in the titular town during the 1920s. With help from his fellow reporter Clem Parlow, a black female madam named Peekaboo, and a host of colorful characters on both sides of the law, Hodge attempts to […]
Losing your mind or your Cadillac?
I’ve been reading a lot of twentieth-century drama. But none has come quite so close to my current dissertation topic as Glengarry Glen Ross. Back when I was first doing my research, my dissertation director referenced it a few times, which meant that it needed to go on my list. It’s definitely an intriguing idea, and I liked the overlapping nature of the dialogue, though I bet so much of the play’s richness occurs in the delivery of the lines and the interactions of the […]