Looped

By Andrew Winston

A remarkably assured and accomplished debut novel that encompasses the bursting life of contemporary Chicago, Looped tells the separate stories of a diverse group of Chicagoans black, brown, and white, gay, straight, and bi as their lives unfold in diverging and (occasionally) converging ways over the course of the year 2000. Among the characters are the family of a middle-class black postman whose runaway daughter has just learned she s pregnant; a gifted half-Vietnamese high-schooler whose troubled father spies on the son he abandoned years earlier; a tradition-bound Greek diner owner whose upwardly mobile daughter, embarrassed by her ethnic roots, is snarled in a loveless marriage; a gay chef whose shaky relationship is strained by the visit of his closeted lover s uncle, a Catholic priest; and the motley members of an up-and-coming band shaken by the breakup of its ambitious lead guitarist and his sexually confused songwriter girlfriend. Ambitious, sprawling, engrossing, multifaceted, insightful, and addictively readable, Looped explodes with a life and vitality that mirrors the multicultural reality of twenty-first century Chicago, where the families that sustain us are more likely to be those we ve created than those we re born to."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972456295
• ISBN13: 9780972456296
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Agate Bolden
• Length: 409 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Looped

I loved looped and couldn't put it down once I started it. I can't wait for Andrew's next book! Keep them coming! Lori Jantzi

Never been to Chicago? Read this book...

I spent a couple weeks in Chicago this year, met a lot of interesting and funny people, and I did it for under $20.00. Beautifully detailed images of the sights and sounds of the town provide a striking backdrop for the diverse characters who endure and thrive there. Looped drops you into the hearts and minds of a variety of Chicagoans, each dealing with and effected by one city in vastly differing ways. I thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Winston's take on big city life from so many viewpoints. I really did feel like I revisited Chicago while reading Looped, and I have great memories of the trip.

Great!!

I thought this book was fantastic. I grew to love the characters and was only disappointed that it had to come to an end. I'll probably be thinking of them for a long while. Andrew Winston did a nice job organizing the chapters. It all flowed together beautifully.

something for everyone

I loved the book, couldn't put it down. Andrew Winston's characters were diverse and interesting and his descriptions of Chicago neighborhoods were right on! Looped has something for everyone and should be read by all.

Looped, there it is....

Despite the dichotomy of character backgrounds, Mr. Winston deftly binds the stories together into a tight single treatise on the human experience. Chicagoans will delight in the subtle textures of their own landscape, but outsiders will also appreciate these subtleties in helping define their Chicago. Few novels have me laughing out loud as Looped did. It is clearly a work of a humorist, poet, keen observer and novelist all in one. Looped is not to be missed.