Time Out Chicago

Wards and all

Alicia Eler

March 13-19, 2008

NPR’s Scott Simon takes a crack at Chicago politics in his new farcical novel, Windy City.

The mayor of Chicago is dead.

He lies facedown in the last two slices of his ritual evening prosciutto and artichoke pizza, pantsless and wearing boxer shorts that read BIG DADDY across his moneymaker.

Thus begins journalist Scott Simon’s second novel, Windy City (Random House, $25), set in Chicago’s fast-moving, swift-talking world of politics. Though it checks in at 414 pages, the book spans only a four-day period filled with emotional turmoil, gritty political decisions, murders, homicide attempts, a suicide and even a touch of romance.

“Politics is a local specialty in Chicago,” says Simon via cell phone from Salvador’s on Randolph during a one-day stop in Chicago. Echoing Studs Terkel, he says: “It’s in many ways as vibrant as the theater community is—and it’s also the local theater.”

After the discovery of the mayor’s body, 48th Ward alderman and “vice mayor” (a title that originally seemed only for show) Sunny Roopini, an Indian man with a knack for politics and the restaurant business, steps into the interim mayor position for the four days until a new mayor is elected. Readers who bleed politics will quickly recognize the 50 diverse wards mentioned throughout the book. But even for the politically clueless, Simon’s book reads as a deft introduction to the world of corrupt Chicago electioneering. It’s something that Simon got to know well during his time here, when he served as NPR’s Chicago bureau chief from 1977 to 1985 (He’s now the host of public radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday).

Though in part a gritty paean to the urban landscape, the novel doesn’t survive on atmosphere alone. Zipping from meeting to meeting, Roopini’s increasingly intense four days as acting mayor aggravates his own struggle to provide for his two daughters after the untimely death of their mother. But no matter what he does, politics manages to consume his life on every level. And for readers, four days will never have seemed so tumultuous.

“There are some periods in our life, often a time of testing, mourning and challenge, that are so overwhelming we remember every detail,” says Simon. “That’s what happens to most of the characters in Windy City —those four days are ones they will remember for the span of their lives.”

As with any great novel, protagonist Sunny’s struggles are just the beginning. He’s a savvy Indian politician in a city whose Indian population keeps growing. The three other aldermen with whom he spends the most time come from diverse backgrounds: Arty Agras, a Greek man, represents the 1st Ward; smooth-talking, African-American knockout Vera Barrow holds up the 5th Ward; and the politician who can flip any situation on its head—and get any woman he wants—is the Lithuanian, Linas Slavinskas of the 12th Ward. As the race for new mayor rolls on, Arty, Linas and Vera battle it out on the treacherous political playing field, while Sunny vehemently dodges fights. But for all their scheming and conniving, these core characters are painted as good and well-meaning, even if their professions lead them into scuzzy situations.

While the shelves of local booksellers creak under the weight of books on Chicago politics, Simon offers something different with Windy City: a more human and fully realized portrait of the people caught up in contemporary public life.

“There are nonfiction books about Chicago politics written by people with better qualifications than me,” he says. “But I love the city, and my infatuation with its politics [stands] up in a novel and hopefully [will] interest people who would never buy a nonfiction book about Chicago politics, but would buy a novel about a guy with two teenage daughters who’s confronting the crisis of his times and the crisis of his life.”