Make Me A City

a novel of Chicago

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Pub Date Mar 14 2019 | Archive Date Nov 30 2020

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Description

How does a place become a city? Whose stories will survive and whose will be lost? How do you know if you truly belong?

It is 1800. On desolate, marshy ground between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, a man builds a house and a city is born …

This masterful debut novel spans Chicago’s tumultuous first century, showing how a city is made: by a succession of vivid, sometimes villainous individuals and their cumulative invention, energy, and vision.

We meet the city’s unacknowledged founder, a descendant of colonisers and slaves; witness the dispersal of the indigenous Native Americans; hear stories of an entrepreneur, an engineer, a courageous female reporter, and a corrupt alderman; and track the lives of immigrants from all over the world, as they struggle for acceptance in a country they have built.

Chicago, its inhabitants and its history are brought to dazzling, colourful life in this epic tale that speaks of not just one city but America as a whole, and of how people come to find their place in the world.

How does a place become a city? Whose stories will survive and whose will be lost? How do you know if you truly belong?

It is 1800. On desolate, marshy ground between Lake Michigan and the Illinois...


A Note From the Publisher

A glorious debut novel for readers of Golden Hill that takes as its main character the city of Chicago.

A glorious debut novel for readers of Golden Hill that takes as its main character the city of Chicago.


Advance Praise

‘A sprawling epic … An absorbing fictional chronicle of a city and its place in American history.’

Antonia Senior , The Times ‘Book of the Month’ 


‘There is much of the panache of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas here: it is an epic story that sweeps the reader from a single log-house to a mass of steel-frame skyscrapers. It moves from bloody tragedy to financial skulduggery and farce, all through a subtle variety of narrative voices and perspectives. A notably rich, rewarding read.’

Fanny Blake , Daily Mail 


‘Make Me A City is a multitude of novels all rolled into one — a wonderfully sprawling epic about Chicago’s founding fathers (and mothers), a searching exploration of colonialism in action, and a compelling collection of stories about people and places. But it is something else too, the one thing that is known to all of us, namely a single, tender map of the human heart. In Make Me A City Jonathan Carr draws on his considerable talent to tell the story of Chicago through the eyes of its many inhabitants, exploring life, death and what is left behind with admirable deftness and style. This is a bold, thrilling debut from a seriously good writer.'

Francesca Rhydderch, author of The Rice Paper Diaries 

‘A sprawling epic … An absorbing fictional chronicle of a city and its place in American history.’

Antonia Senior , The Times ‘Book of the Month’ 


‘There is much of the panache of David Mitchell’s...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781925693515
PRICE A$32.99 (AUD)
PAGES 512

Average rating from 2 members