Alex Kotlowitz, author of the 2012 One Book One Northwestern selection, spoke Wednesday night in Ryan Auditorium about the book and the power he sees in stories.
“Never a City So Real,” this year’s One Book One Northwestern text, details the stories of a diverse group of Chicagoans. Kotlowitz’s speech to an audience of nearly 100 included a wide range of stories he encountered during his career.
Kotlowitz said he considers himself a storyteller, an idea he came back to multiple times. Throughout the speech, he spoke on his belief in stories and said stories should stick closely to the facts, avoid pandering and inform the audience as opposed to influencing them.
“(Stories) let us find our own way,” he said.
Kotlowitz said he sees Chicago as a microcosm of America and a good source of stories that provide a more nuanced understanding of the country.
“Chicago is not just any American city, it is the American city,” Kotlowitz said.
Kotlowitz spoke repeatedly about the idea of the outsider, which he said was present throughout “Never a City So Real.” In this way, he said he sees himself as following in the footsteps of Studs Terkel, a noted Chicago historian who focused on the stories of everyday people.
Throughout the speech, Kotlowitz brought up people who found it difficult and emotional to recount their stories. Each time, he said he asked them why, if their stories were so difficult to tell, they would tell him. Kotlowitz said all these people told him it was because nobody had asked. He drew the connection to the story of one woman who, after listening to the tape of an interview, remarked that she had never realized she felt that way.
Though there were few students in a largely adult audience, Weinberg sophomore Alexandra Becker attended the speech and said she enjoyed listening to what Kotlowitz had to say.
“I liked the use of multimedia,” Becker said, speaking about multiple occasions in which Kotlowitz played audio of quotes before discussing them.
The quotes came from people whose stories he told, often after extensive research into their lives.
“People let me navigate their world,” Kotlowitz said.
Kotlowitz said he sees great danger in the fact that the stories of everyday people are often overlooked in favor of general narratives about certain types of people. To illustrate this point, he discussed a shooting in a Chicago housing project.
While visiting the project, Kotlowitz said he was told that rival gangs had participated in a shootout between two high-rises earlier that day. This would have involved a huge exchange of gunfire, he said, and would have been impossible to miss. When he checked with a police spokeswoman, however, he said she noted that the chief and other top officers had no idea about any such incident.
To Kotlowitz, “police crafted a narrative of this community,” instead of going out and trying to understand what was actually happening. He said he believed the police lacked empathy toward the community.
To show how stories can provide that empathy, Kotlowitz recounted another story, this one about a man who walked out on a barber for denigrating Mexican immigrants. To explain why, Kotlowitz said the man said “that’s the same (stuff) they said about my grandfather 100 years ago.”
Kotlowitz said listening is very important to him and admitted he is not naturally a good listener.
“Listening is not always a passive exercise,” he said. “It’s an act of curiosity, an act of empathy.”
