The Roanoke Times (Virginia)

A Lively Novel for Political Junkies

Rodney Barfield

March 9, 2008

"Windy City" opens like a traditional murder mystery: "The mayor was found shortly after eleven with his bronze, brooding face lying on the last two slices of a prosciutto and artichoke pizza." Shades of Harold Washington. 

What at first blush appears to be the natural collapse of a near-70-year-old political workhorse who relishes Italian food, morphs into a case of culinary homicide. And then the mystery is put on the back burner.

What follows is a political drama built around an acting interim mayor, Sundaran"Sunny" Roopini, and the competition among 49 aldermen who want to succeed the deceased mayor of Chicago. Acting Mayor Roopini, an Indian immigrant widower with two lively teenage daughters, must accommodate demanding constituents, conniving aldermen, threats on civic tranquility and a federal investigation.

Through it all, the author gives us a tourist's view of the inner machinations of city hall, the horse-trading of doing the public's business, and the cleanup required when the horses leave the building.

Chicago is an immigrant's city, and it is one of the pleasures of this book to savor the visits to various ethnic wards, especially to visit their restaurants, and eavesdrop on the Babel of languages and customs as they mesh and meld with the American experience. The scents and sounds of the streets are almost palpable.

Scott Simon, NPR host of "Weekend Edition," knows his way around ward politics and is pitch-perfect in his rendering of the glib and caustic chatter of old courthouse politicians and the ethnic slang of the 100 language groups camped out in Chicago. His dialogue throws off sparks and shrieks like a Chicago El-car.

Oh, the dead mayor? The homicide investigation, as well as its conclusion, is somewhat an afterthought. Even so, I won't give it away. And the finale of this 400-plus page tale wades into the sludge of electing a new mayor and counting, and recounting, votes.

"Aldermen were considered the comic relief of politics... [T]hey wanted to be loved and asserted themselves desperately and gracelessly, like ducks trying to make love to a football."

Recommended to all political junkies.