Chicago: A Novel - Softcover

“All the trademarks of a Mamet production — electric dialogue and a hurtling pace.” (New York Times)

As if Cormac McCarthy had decamped from Southwest to Midwest...Chicago feels like one of the great American male novelists of the late 20th century — Updike, Mailer, Bellow, Roth—trying his hand at writing a genre novel. But unlike those novelists’ somewhat less sure-footed lunges...Mamet lands this with aplomb. (Los Angeles Times)

“Splendid... a riveting crime drama in a throwback journalistic world, a time when you could yell for a copy boy to bring you Dixie cups for your illegal liquor. But this novel has a romantic heart, and the emotional stakes complement the whiskey-drenched whodunit.” (USA Today)

“Tommy guns, bootleggers and hard-living newsmen: David Mamet adds a vivid novel to a legendary tradition.” (Wall Street Journal)

“Chicago is tremendous fun, with much to savour.” (The Times Literary Supplement)

“Acclaimed playwright (Glengarry Glen Ross) and screenwriter (The Untouchables) Mamet unpacks his literary arsenal in his first novel in two decades.... Mamet offers a master class on dialogue.... For readers of Elmore Leonard and Dennis Lehane. (Booklist (starred review))

“The story moves at a careening pace... Of a piece with character studies such as E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime and John Sayles’ Eight Men Out, Mamet’s book does Chicago—and organized crime—proud. An evocative, impressive return that Mamet fans will welcome.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Full of twists and surprises...Mamet’s new novel is a treasure, a piece of fictitious history entrenched in an era of violence and love.” (Harvard Crimson)

“The finest American writer of his generation.” (Sunday Mail)