E. M. Forster once described Chicago as “A façade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the façade, every type of dubiousness.” In Chicago Tales—a collection of fourteen short stories—first-time fiction author Bill VanPatten takes us behind the façade as he crafts a rich mosaic of characters caught in events ranging from the everyday to the extra-ordinary. On these pages we encounter a transvestite prostitute trapped in an abusive relationship, a Latina confronting her agnosticism when the Virgin Mary appears under an expressway (as she did in April 2005), an adolescent Irish girl who—in 1871 anti-immigrant Chicago—discovers a terrible truth about her mother, a 1930s marriage of convenience that results in a husband-and-wife hit team, and a vodka-swigging atheist thrust into the company of a Bible-toting college student when they find themselves the last two persons alive in Chicago. VanPatten serves up these remarkable people and more, challenging the reader to not have sympathy, to not find some part of the characters’ conflicted lives with which to identify. In the end, Chicago Tales may be more about the universality of the human condition, set in the context of the city that British historian James Bryce described as “Perhaps the most typically American place in America.” Indeed, the characters inhabiting the pages of this book could exist just about anywhere. But they happen to live in Chicago—dubiousness and all.
From the story "Pair of Strangers"
Dexter Mann waited for a Red Line train at the Washington Street Station, thinking about the bottle of Stolichnaya that waited for him in his freezer. He should never have gone into the office today, even for just the few hours he had. He liked working in the field, more so than in some dreary place where the hum of fluorescent lights and the din of dozens of conversations floated in the air like invisible gnats—those pesky no-see-ums, beating their wings at 62,000 times per minute. Where’d he read that? Why did he know something as stupid as the wing beat of the North American midge?
As he stood on the platform inhaling the stale air of the underground station, he glanced around. Dexter was nosy by nature, a useful trait when he’d first trained as a claims investigator for Midwest Life. His talent for reading body language and faces had quickly transferred into the practical skill of rooting out liars and frauds, which eventually led to his nickname “The Reader” among his colleagues. His gaze fell upon a couple, standing like any two people might as they waited for a train. The girl seemed bored but to Dexter’s trained eye there was trouble afoot. A cheater, he thought. She’s stepping out on him and he doesn’t know it yet. His eyes swept the platform until they landed on a man in his early twenties—ear phones plugged in, eyes glued to a book, oblivious to the world around him. He was thin and pimply—and his hair looked like it’d been ravaged by static electricity. Introvert. Probably a tech geek who just woke up from a nap.
Next, his eyes fell on a young woman, nineteen or twenty. She wore no makeup and had mousy brown hair pulled back into a pony tail that rested limply between her shoulder blades. A backpack drooped over one shoulder and she sported plain clothes—jeans and a black T-shirt with white lettering: Moody Bible Institute. One of those. She stood there, as if in a trance, lost in some thought. Dexter detected a struggle within her, a simmering pot of emotions that slowly boiled her insides. Guilt? Perhaps. But also a profound sense of loss, punched through and through with despair. And so young.
A faint rush of air signaled that a train was approaching. Dexter craned his neck and peered into the tunnel. A pair of headlights emerged from around a curve to meet his gaze. He pulled back and within a minute the train roared to a halt in front of the platform. The doors whooshed open, and after a large woman with a cane and two men in business suits stepped off, Dexter climbed aboard to take one of the dozen empty seats in the car. The train jerked to a start and headed out of the station. He looked around and noticed that the kid with the earphones, the cheater and her man, and the Moody Bible girl had all boarded the same car. About twenty other people were seated, some engrossed in the newspaper, some napping, some just sitting there. Dexter settled into himself and closed his eyes, letting the clickity-clack from the wheels lull him into visions of a hefty pour of freezer-cold vodka. He conjured a puff of condensation as his hand unstopped the bottle and in his head he heard the vodka splash onto ice. His lips drew into a faint smile as he imagined the smooth liquid trickling down his throat, its warm sensation helping to carry him through another evening alone in front of the TV.
Dexter opened his eyes when the movement of the train ceased. Looking through the window he could tell they’d stopped in the tunnel. Must be a backup at the next station, he thought. Then, the lights winked out on the train, plunging Dexter and his fellow passengers into complete blackness. People murmured and Dexter detected a few what-the-fucks and several damned-CTAs. One woman—perhaps the one cheating on her boyfriend or husband—spoke softly but loudly enough for Dexter to hear.
“Raul, this is scary.”
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “Just some glitch.” Then he said something in Spanish that Dexter didn’t understand. The woman giggled. Dexter wondered why no voice came over the intercom to inform the passengers of the problem.
Then he heard the first scream.
It came from a car further up the train, maybe the head car. The scream was followed by another in the car behind it and another in the next and so on until the screams reached the car in front of Dexter’s. Suddenly, a blood curdling wail filled his ears.
Then silence . . .
About Bill VanPatten
Bill VanPatten is an internationally renowned best-selling scholar of languages who is now applying his talents to fiction. Deftly moving from darkness to humor, from the mundane to the fantastic, from stark to vivid, VanPatten's masterful imagery and language are evident in Chicago Tales. The result is good old fashioned story telling that only the big city--past and present--can offer.
E. M. Forster once described Chicago as “A façade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the façade, every type of dubiousness.” In Chicago Tales—a collection of fourteen short stories—first-time fiction author Bill VanPatten takes us behind the façade as he crafts a rich mosaic of characters caught in events ranging from the everyday to the extra-ordinary. On these pages we encounter a transvestite prostitute trapped in an abusive relationship, a Latina confronting her agnosticism when the Virgin Mary appears under an expressway (as she did in April 2005), an adolescent Irish girl who—in 1871 anti-immigrant Chicago—discovers a terrible truth about her mother, a 1930s marriage of convenience that results in a husband-and-wife hit team, and a vodka-swigging atheist thrust into the company of a Bible-toting college student when they find themselves the last two persons alive in Chicago. VanPatten serves up these remarkable people and more, challenging the reader to not have sympathy, to not find some part of the characters’ conflicted lives with which to identify. In the end, Chicago Tales may be more about the universality of the human condition, set in the context of the city that British historian James Bryce described as “Perhaps the most typically American place in America.” Indeed, the characters inhabiting the pages of this book could exist just about anywhere. But they happen to live in Chicago—dubiousness and all. 
Bill VanPatten is an internationally renowned best-selling scholar of languages who is now applying his talents to fiction. Deftly moving from darkness to humor, from the mundane to the fantastic, from stark to vivid, VanPatten's masterful imagery and language are evident in Chicago Tales. The result is good old fashioned story telling that only the big city--past and present--can offer.