The New York Times - Scott Turow
…Thomas Dyja's engrossing, wide-angled cultural history of Chicago in the middle of the 20th century…makes for an intensely engaging book, notable for its intellectual breadth, arms-wide research and high-octane prose that keeps it riding high over the mass of details…Like all good histories, the book is crammed with tasty morsels…More important, Mr. Dyja repeatedly presents a nuanced understanding that counterbalances many of today's convenient preconceptions.
The New York Times Book Review - Rachel Shteir
Thomas Dyja's robust cultural history, The Third Coast, weaves together the stories of the American artists, styles and ideas that developed in Chicago before and after World War II—the blues, Mies van der Rohe's Modernist architecture, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, and "Kukla, Fran and Ollie"…Dyja zooms in on the qualities Chicagoans value and does it better than anyone else I've read: informality; the desire to be "regular"; the conviction among artists that "the process was as important as the product."
Publishers Weekly
Novelist and Chicago native Dyja (Play for a Kingdom) delivers a magisterial narrative of mid-20th century Chicago, once America’s “primary meeting place, market, workshop and lab.” Dyja covers the period from the 1930s through the 1950s, when Chicago produced much of what became postwar America’s way of life: Mies van der Rohe’s glass and steel skyscrapers; TV’s soap operas; Ray Kroc’s McDonald’s franchise; Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire; and the Chess Brothers’ recording studio that unleashed Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, urban blues, and rock ’n’ roll. Though the book focuses on Chicago’s pivotal role in producing America’s mass-market culture, Dyja highlights how Chicago was also wrestling with the counterculture—the improvisational theater of Second City, the urban poor in Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry and Nelson Algren’s novels, Moholy’s experimental Institute of Design, and new styles in television and music aimed at people, not markets. As Dyja notes, racial strife pervaded all aspects of life in the city, which was home to the National Baptist Convention; the Harlem Globetrotters; major black press outlets (Ebony and Jet, among others); and Emmett Till, whose murder sparked the Civil Rights movement. Dyja explores Chicago’s politics, and how the city’s leadership attempted to address the “racial wound,” caused, in part, by placing all public housing in black neighborhoods. What emerges is a luminous, empathetic, and engrossing portrait of a city. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM. (Apr.)
Booklist (starred review)
Robust, outspoken, zestfully knowledgeable, and seductively told…Writing with velocity, wry wit, and tough lyricism in sync with Chicago’s ‘ballsy’ spirit, Dyja focuses on the years between the Great Depression and 1960…As vibrant and clarifying as his overarching vision is, what makes this such a thrilling read are Dyja’s fresh and dynamic portraits not only of the first Mayor Daley and his machine but also of key artists and innovators who embodied or amplified Chicago’s earthiness, grit, audacity, and beauty…Here is the frenetic simultaneity of an evolving city torn between its tragic crimes and failings and tensile strength and creativity.”
author of Exiled in Paradise and The Fan Who Knew Anthony Heilbut
This is a book as startling as the place it celebrates: Chicago, the town where a gay puppeteer transformed children’s television and, thereby, their imagination; the burg where postwar comedy, cuisine, urban politics, and premarital sex were all changed, changed utterly. Dyja gives unforgettable voice to dozens of out-sized personalities, from Sun Ra to Studs Terkel, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Nelson Algren, from Mahalia Jackson to Muddy Waters, from Richard Daley to Adlai Stevenson, a cast worthy of a Tolstoy or Dickens. In his wonderful book, Chicago stands revealed as both America’s most corrupt city and its one, true homeland of the soul.”
Bob Marovich
In The Third Coast, Thomas Dyja chronicles Chicago’s estimable contributions to American culture with the colorful prose of Nelson Algren and the humanistic wisdom of Studs Terkel. He puts you at street level with the men and women whose talent and entrepreneurial chutzpah combined to give Chicago, and the nation, its postwar swagger.”
Seattle Times
My God, how I enjoyed this book…[Dyja] offers up Chicago in full…The book is an extraordinarily good read, with writing that sparkles.”
AudioFile
While most of the American cultural experience focuses on what comes out of New York and Hollywood, it’s important to remember the Midwestern colossus that hoisted the nation on its shoulders: Chicago. This book recounts the history of the Windy City after WWII and how it gave birth to a unique artistic style and the Daley political machine. Narrator David Drummond has exactly the right voice to carry this book: deep, bold, and elastic. He doesn’t attempt any characters but he gives the words a life and heft that reflect the author’s point about Chicago being an important player in America’s modern story.”
New York Times bestselling author Edward Glaeser
Thomas Dyja has written a wonderful book about the cultural cauldron that seethed in twentieth-century Chicago. The Third Coast reminds us that New York and Los Angeles hold no monopoly on American artistic genius. From Louis Sullivan to Richard Wright, from Mahalia Jackson to Nelson Algren, Chicago attracted and inspired talent. Dyja’s well-crafted exploration of Chicago creativity helps us understand why cities are the wellsprings of culture. American society was molded by its cities, and Chicago has played an outsized role in molding music and literature and architecture. Dyja’s engaging writing not only provides an insightful investigation of Chicago’s cultural heroes but also delivers a broader view of how cities shape the sea of civilization.”
New York Times Book Review
"[A] robust cultural history…Dyja zooms in on the qualities Chicagoans value and does it better than anyone else I’ve read.”
Vanity Fair
A rollicking cultural history…What’s a given now was often given by Chicago: high-rises, gospel and the blues, TV talk shows, Playboy, McDonalds, sketch comedy…Was it all dazzling coincidence or, as Dyja suggests, something in the water?”
New York Times bestselling author Michael Kimmelman
Thomas Dyja’s The Third Coast is a wonderful, beautifully written eye-opener and genuine page-turner about Chicago, as sweeping and astonishing as the city itself. It does nothing less than help rewrite postwar American history and culture and cure our bicoastal myopia. It links half a century’s worth of economic and social changes with cultural revolution, racial strife with sexual upheaval, architecture with politics, literature with gospel music, Hugh Hefner with Tina Fey, Mies van der Rohe with Mayor Daley, Ray Kroc with Katherine Kuh—it’s the whole, grand, messy American story, lived through bigger-than-life in a bigger-than-life city.”
New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brinkley
Thomas Dyja’s The Third Coast unravels the wondrous history of Chicago with cunning and aplomb. Every aspect of the Windy City is revealed anew from Mies van der Rohe’s skyscrapers to Chuck Berry’s rock ’n’ roll. A truly gripping narrative. Highly recommended!”
Chicago Tribune
"The Third Coast has an elegant, unflinching, non-nostalgic clarity…a new touchstone in Chicago literature…an ambitious history lesson no one had written.”
New York Times bestselling author Scott Turow
Engrossing…This gallery of vivid portraits makes for an intensely engaging book, notable for its intellectual breadth, arms-wide research, and high-octane prose that keeps it riding high over the mass of details…Like all good histories, the book is crammed with tasty morsels…More important, Mr. Dyja repeatedly presents a nuanced understanding that counterbalances many of today’s convenient preconceptions.”
New York Times bestselling author Kurt Andersen
I am an American, not Chicago-born, but at age nine Chicago was the first big city I visited, and it was love at first sight. I’ve come to know it deeply, however, only through its writers: Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko—and now Thomas Dyja. The Third Coast is a vivid, fascinating, surprising, altogether masterful chronicle of this quintessentially American city’s mid-century cultural heyday.”
From the Publisher
Chicago Tribune:
"The Third Coast is deeply researched, thoroughly thought-out, exquisitely structured and beautifully written — an essential for any lover of Chicago and American history.”
Scott Turow, The New York Times:
"An intensely engaging book, notable for its intellectual breadth, arms-wide research and [the] high-octane prose that keeps it riding high..."
New York Times Book Review (cover):
"[A] robust cultural history… Dyja zooms in on the qualities Chicagoans value and does it better than anyone else I've read."
Vanity Fair:
"A rollicking cultural history… What's a given now was often given by Chicago: high-rises, gospel and the blues, TV talk shows, Playboy, McDonalds, sketch comedy…Was it all dazzling coincidence or, as Dyja suggests, something in the water?"
Chicago Tribune:
"The Third Coast… has an elegant, unflinching, non-nostalgic clarity… a new touchstone in Chicago literature… an ambitious history lesson no one had written."
Seattle Times:
"My God, how I enjoyed this book… The Third Coast offers a deeper perspective, detailing Chicago’s midcentury contributions to literature, music, theater, photography, television and architecture… The book is an extraordinarily good read, with writing that sparkles."
The Huntington News:"An exceedingly entertaining book...The Third Coast is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand Chicago — and by extension the creation of post WWII urban America. On top of that, it's supremely readable. An unbeatable combination."
Booklist (starred review):
"[A] robust, outspoken, zestfully knowledgeable, and seductively told synthesis of biography, culture, politics, and history…[written] with velocity, wry wit, and tough lyricism… Dyja focuses on the years between the Great Depression and 1960... As vibrant and clarifying as his overarching vision is, what makes this such a thrilling read are Dyja’s fresh and dynamic portraits not only of the first Mayor Daley and his machine but also of key artists and innovators who embodied or amplified Chicago’s earthiness, grit, audacity, and beauty… from the city’s epic political corruption, vicious racism, and ethnic enclaves to the ferment that gave rise to world-changing architecture, urban blues and gospel, McDonald’s, improv comedy, and the 'birth of television.' Here is the frenetic simultaneity of an evolving city torn between its tragic crimes and failings and tensile strength and creativity."
Publishers Weekly (starred):
"A magisterial narrative of mid-20th century Chicago... a luminous, empathetic, and engrossing portrait of a city."
Kirkus Reviews:
"A readable, richly detailed history of America's second city-which, laments novelist/historian and Chicagoan Dyja has become a third city, perhaps even less. A valuable contribution to the history of Chicago, worthy of a place alongside William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis."
Kurt Andersen, author of True Believers:
"I am an American, not Chicago-born, but at age nine Chicago was the first big city I visited, and it was love at first sight. I've come to know it deeply, however, only through its writers: Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko—and now Thomas Dyja. The Third Coast is a vivid, fascinating, surprising, altogether masterful chronicle of this quintessentially American city's mid-century cultural heyday."
Anthony Heilbut, author of Exiled in Paradise and The Fan Who Knew Too Much:
"This is a book as startling as the place it celebrates: Chicago, the town where a gay puppeteer transformed children's television and thereby, their imagination; the burg where post-war comedy, cuisine, urban politics, and pre-marital sex were all changed, changed utterly. Dyja gives unforgettable voice to dozens of out-sized personalities, from Sun Ra to Studs Terkel, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Nelson Algren, from Mahalia Jackson to Muddy Waters, from Richard Daley to Adlai Stevenson, a cast worthy of a Tolstoy or Dickens. In his wonderful book, Chicago stands revealed as both America's most corrupt city and its one, true homeland of the soul."
Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City:
"Thomas Dyja has written a wonderful book about the cultural cauldron that seethed in 20th century Chicago. The Third Coast reminds us that New York and Los Angeles hold no monopoly on American artistic genius. From Louis Sullivan to Richard Wright, from Mahalia Jackson to Nelson Algren, Chicago attracted and inspired talent. Dyja's well-crafted exploration of Chicago creativity helps us understand why cities are the wellsprings of culture. American society was molded by its cities, and Chicago has played an outsized role in molding music and literature and architecture. Dyja's engaging writing not only provides an insightful investigation of Chicago's cultural heroes, but also delivers a broader view of how cities shape the sea of civilization."
Michael Kimmelman, author of The Accidental Masterpiece:
"Thomas Dyja's The Third Coast is a wonderful, beautifully-written, eye-opener and genuine page-turner about Chicago, as sweeping and astonishing as the city itself. It does nothing less than help rewrite postwar American history and culture and cure our bi-coastal myopia. It links half-a-century's worth of economic and social changes with cultural revolution, racial strife with sexual upheaval, architecture with politics, literature with gospel music, Hugh Hefner with Tina Fey, Mies van der Rohe with Mayor Daley, Ray Kroc with Katherine Kuh—it's the whole grand, messy American story, lived through bigger-than-life characters in a bigger-than-life city."
Bob Marovich, Host of "Gospel Memories," WLUW Chicago:
"In The Third Coast, Thomas Dyja chronicles Chicago's estimable contributions to American culture with the colorful prose of Nelson Algren and the humanistic wisdom of Studs Terkel. He puts you at street level with the men and women whose talent and entrepreneurial chutzpah combined to give Chicago, and the nation, its postwar swagger."
Douglas Brinkley, author of Cronkite:
"Thomas Dyja's The Third Coast unravels the wondrous history of Chicago with cunning and aplomb. Every aspect of the Windy City is revealed anew from Mies van der Rohe's skyscrapers to Chuck Berry's rock n' roll. A truly gripping narrative. Highly recommended!"
Chicago Tribune
It also has an elegant, unflinching, non-nostalgic clarity about Chicago that you rarely see in books about Chicago. It gave me a dizzying rush, the impression that I had come across a new touchstone in Chicago literature, an ambitious history lesson no one had written: The story of how, from 1945 to 1960, Chicago created the culture that shaped American culture, delivering, in that brief window, Studs Terkel, McDonald's, Hugh Hefner, the atom bomb, modernist architecture, Chess Records, The Second City, the Chicago School of Television and "Kukla, Fran and Ollie."
JUNE 2013 - AudioFile
While most of the American cultural experience focuses on what comes out of New York and Hollywood, it’s important to remember the Midwestern colossus that hoisted the nation on its shoulders: Chicago. This book recounts the history of the Windy City after WWII and how it gave birth to a unique artistic style and the Daley political machine. Narrator David Drummond has exactly the right voice to carry this book: deep, bold, and elastic. He doesn’t attempt any characters but he gives the words a life and heft that reflect the author’s point about Chicago being an important player in America’s modern story. There are times when Drummond’s voice becomes stuck in a limited range, but he’s able to break out of it to avoid tedium. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A readable, richly detailed history of America's second city--which, laments novelist/historian and Chicagoan Dyja (Walter White: The Dilemma of Black Identity in America, 2008, etc.), has become a third city, perhaps even less. One reason: Until the very end of the 1950s, most people traveling from coast to coast did so by way of Chicago, where they changed trains and often spent a little layover time. On January 25, 1959, all that changed when transcontinental air service was inaugurated between New York and Los Angeles, making Chicago and the rest of the land "flyover country"; as Dyja laments, "the newly minted ‘jet set' would never need to change trains in Chicago again." Nevertheless, Chicago remained an innovator on several cultural and commercial fronts, the home of Playboy magazine and Chess Records, even as it settled into the strange boss politics of Richard Daley, whose rise to power Dyja carefully records. Daley wielded that power in ways that a modern tyrant might envy, using what came to be known as "The Machine" to capture the minority vote that had become important by the 1950s after the explosive growth of the nonwhite population as a result of immigration and internal migration. However, writes Dyja, it was just one node of power, the other two central ones being the Catholic Church and organized crime, all working against each other as they "protected their power above the needs of the people they served." In the end, Los Angeles and other cities stole much of Chicago's thunder, and Chicago "never became the city it could have been, the city it should have been." A valuable contribution to the history of Chicago, worthy of a place alongside William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis (1991).
