Chicago Sun-Times

A writer does his homework

Mike Thomas

April 27, 2008

For his novel 'Windy City,' Scott Simon spent two years listening

Scott Simon is a fastidious man. He dresses, acts, speaks and even sips in a neat and tidy manner. His dandy-ish clothes (British, expensive, impeccable) hail from a haberdashery in the fashionable Piccadilly area of London. His well-tended hair is handsomely teased, so that a strategic few graying wisps fall stylishly about his forehead.

And, of course, there's the voice.

A longtime National Public Radio broadcaster, Simon began his career in Chicago more than three decades ago. Since then, the award-winning reporter and host of "Weekend Edition" has become something of a minor rock star to millions of weekly listeners. They tune in as much for his widely varied and often amusing subject matter as for his subtly theatrical and liltingly lyrical delivery. Laughs, too. As the son of late comedian Ernie Simon, Simon is acutely attuned to funny business. ("Think Yiddish, dress British," Dad always said.)

All of which makes him a natural at meticulously mapping out the messy, drama-rife and often unintentionally hilarious morass of politics. In the case of his newest novel, Windy City, Chicago politics. The facts that he was born in Chicago, spent his very early years here, adores the town immensely and has a professional background filled with political reporting doesn't hurt.

During a recent visit, while encamped with his wife of nearly eight years and their two daughters at a swanky boutique hotel just off Michigan Avenue, Simon said that Windy City is the product of two or so years of "talking to people and trying to understand the thread that holds things together."

Featuring aldermen, lawmen and a mayor who's unequal parts Daley the First, Harold Washington and former New York honcho Ed Koch, the book is an exquisite portrayal of the City That Works, how it works and why it works -- as viewed and skewed through Simon's eyes and creative sensibility.

"I began with the presumption that all politics is local," he said. "I hadn't quite understood that all politics is personal -- the way people become identified with things. And your key to getting a working relationship with them is to understand and respect what they need to get out of that agreement. And it's often totally unrelated to that agreement."

In preparation for writing Windy City, Simon spent considerable time wandering the city and gleaning pertinent Chicago-centric details about people and places. The process included picking the brains of real-life city officials, some of whom read his copy for accuracy and offered inside scoops.

"This is a terrible inference," Simon said, "but I think in many ways they were flattered by the attention and they kind of thought, 'Gee, somebody's taking this seriously,' because I assured them I have essential respect for the dignity of their purpose, which is to run a government, which is to make Chicago work. And they were astonishingly candid about the inner workings -- even the shadier side."

If only in general terms. "I didn't talk to a single city councilman who said, 'Let me tell you how I once offered some low bribe to somebody.' It wasn't that good. But they would tell me stories about others for which they were present, or at least claimed to be present. And once they understood this was a novel, I think they were almost eager to share some of that. I think they all felt that there was kind of essential dignity of purpose that they embodied just by being in government, and they wanted people to understand that; that as maligned and ridiculed and mocked as they are -- and they often invite it on themselves -- it's how things get done."

As it was in talking with sources, Simon's tone never smacked of judgmental incredulity. But despite his matter-of-fact manner, he claimed not to be jaded. "I tell young reporters who will sometimes seek me out if they're going off to cover their first, second or third war that it's important not to be jaded," he said. "It's important not to think that you know it going into it."

Windy City benefitted from that approach -- from Simon's open-minded, always curious, level-headed examination of what Sean Connery most famously dubbed the "Chicago Way." Insiders excluded, Simon now appreciates it better than most.

"I think the frank and clear-eyed acknowledgement that you have to satisfy mutual self-interest to keep a human enterprise going is only something that mature human beings recognize as necessary," he said. "I don't think we should be shocked or horrified."

Photo:  John H. White