SOURCE: “Fiction.” Kirkus Reviews 58, no. 4 (15 February 1990): 204-05.

In the following review of The Coast of Chicago, the critic compares the collection to Dubliners and Sherwood Anderson's tales in its design, scope, and realism.

Grounded in the realities of ethnic life in Chicago, Dybek's second collection of stories (Children and Other Neighborhoods, 1980) transcends street-corner sociology for an urban poetry of spirit and myth; his lyrical prose derives its power from his switchblade sharp imagery—as well as Proustian sensitivity to the smells and sounds of city life.

Every story here, from the half-page shorts to the lengthy, conventional narratives, serves as a gloss on the others, creating a coherence of design and texture truly worthy of comparison with Joyce's epiphanic Dublin tales or Anderson's Midwestern elegiacs. “Bottle Caps,” “Lights,” and “The Woman Who Fainted” all detail odd rituals—collecting beer-bottle caps, waiting on the corner at dusk to tell...