by Rich Cohen
First published 2002
Rich Cohen grows up in affluent Glencoe on Chicago's North Shore, spending summers with friends like swaggering Tom Pistone and earnest Ronnie Flowers. Everything changes when Jamie Drew arrives from a working-class town west of the city. Jamie lacks a father and carries himself with a confidence that captivates Cohen, who lives under the shadow of his own dominant father. The two boys become inseparable as they navigate the rituals of adolescence: pursuing girls, sneaking drinks, driving borrowed cars to jazz clubs in the city, and dreaming of Cubs victories from Wrigley Field's cheap seats. Jamie represents everything Cohen wishes to see in himself when he looks in the mirror. Their bond deepens through shared adventures that stretch from Lake Michigan's shores to New Orleans' French Quarter. But as Cohen matures and eventually finds himself in the halls of the New Yorker, he confronts the painful reality of viewing that golden friendship through adult eyes. The memoir explores what happens to our childhood selves and whether we can disappear completely into grown-up lives, leaving behind the friends who once defined us.
Genres: family-life, friendship, 20th-century, american, coming-of-age, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Chicago, French Quarter, Glencoe, Lake Michigan, New Orleans, Wrigley Field
Period: Adolescence
224 pages · Hardcover · Knopf