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Swap the books you've read, for some you haven't!
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Lake Effect by Rich Cohen
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  | Vintage, 2003 Paperback, 224 pages edition: Reprint isbn: 0375725334value: 11 creditscondition: acceptable | owner: mckenzieanne     
A New York Times Notable Book
Winner of the Great Lakes Book Award and the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library
Raised in an affluent suburb on the North Shore of Chicago, Rich Cohen had a cluster of interesting friends, but none more interesting than Jamie Drew. Fatherless, reckless, and lower middle class in a place that wasn’t, Jamie possessed such an irresistible insouciance and charm that even the teachers called him Drew-licious. Through the high school years of parties and Cub games and girls, of summer nights on the beach and forbidden forays into the blues bars of Chicago’s notorious South Side, the two formed an inseparable bond. Even after Cohen went to college in New Orleans (Jamie went to Kansas) and then moved to New York, where he had a memorable interlude with the legendary New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, Jamie remained oddly crucial to his life. Exquisite and taut, Lake Effect is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that quietly bores to the essence of friendship and how it survives even as it is destined to change. |
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Lake Effect by Rich Cohen
Synopsis: A New York Times Notable BookWinner of the Great Lakes Book Award and the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public LibraryRaised in an affluent suburb on the North Shore of Chicago, Rich Cohen had a cluster of interesting friends, but none more interesting than Jamie Drew. Fatherless, reckless, and lower middle class in a place that wasn’t, Jamie possessed such an irresistible insouciance and charm that even the teachers called him Drew-licious. Through the high school years of parties and Cub games and girls, of summer nights on the beach and forbidden forays into the blues bars of Chicago’s notorious South Side, the two formed an inseparable bond. Even after Cohen went to college in New Orleans (Jamie went to Kansas) and then moved to New York, where he had a memorable interlude with the legendary New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, Jamie remained oddly crucial to his life. Exquisite and taut, Lake Effect is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that quietly bores to the essence of friendship and how it survives even as it is destined to change.
Review: The book recounts the author's years growing up in the 1980s in Glencoe, a Chicago suburb, and subsequently his student years in New Orleans, but really centres on his best friend Jamie. It is evocative of the period and full of memorable imagery. Jamie is an extraordinary and delightful character, and the remarkable platonic friendship he and the author Rich enjoy is beautifully recounted. This is a book which repays careful reading, not one to be hurried. It reveals much insight, and while the end is far from negative, I experienced a feeling of great sadness and yet tremendous warmth as the book drew towards its conclusion. A thoroughly rewarding book, highly recommended.
Review: As a graduate of New Trier High School, I feel that this book did a wonderful job illustrating some of the feelings I had during High School. I thought Cohen's writing was captivating and entertaining, and I am very interested to read his other books. "Lake Effect" is a must read!
Review: Very interesting, perceptive, and often funny writing style. Cohen can write "thumbnail sketches" of people and sitations as well as anyone I've read lately. (His short riff on a summer of bad jobs is a good example, wherein he sums up his bad bosses in a sentence or two, and you still "get" what kind of people they are.) In short, highly recommended.
Review: Rich Cohen's book is terrific. It is easy enough to be read in one sitting. However, I would recommend taking your time--like the summer idylls he describes in the book. The prose is easy going, but at times it is beautiful. Talking about writing his memories of childhood Cohen says, "On the page these memories becamne stories. In this way, they were preserved and destroyed, taken from my mind and fixed in place. Never again could they haunt me in quite the same way." Indeed, this what the book partially does for Rich Cohen. It is also about friendships and in reading about them, I could hear the songs of Harry Chapin. That was music I listened to with my friends from the North Shore (although I was a city boy) about a half decade after Cohen left town. He is lyrical about growing up. He is also honest. He captures the essence of leaving behind your childhood. He never claims that things happened exactly as he puts them down on the page--there are no claims of objective truth. He writes beautifully of his own memories and in that he transcends the facts. His growing up was different than some readers (drugs, etc), but it makes the feelings no less universal. I hesitate to make the comparison of Cohen's book to some of Bob Greene's work. Greene's work is about a different generation that is often remembered by it's own members. Greene tends to remember things in an innocent, nostalgic way, whereas Cohen has a harder edge honesty about his work--a raw quality that fits his persona. However, what strikes me about both Chicago writers is that they both love the world that created them. They honor memories. There is much to be said for that. Cohen is giving voice to Generation X in a way that few writers have (it is about time someone wrote about us in this way). He is normal kid who is not confessing about his prozac nation, some sad abuse, or any of the other shocking claims of memoirs of Gen X. Cohen loves his friends. His friendships were filled with hope, love, and dreams. Jaime may be a lot like Ferris Bueller, but I think he was real. So is Cohen and so are his memories.
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