Part 4, Chapter 13 Summary and Analysis

"South of Kankakee: a Day with David Plowden" describes McCullough's drive southward from Chicago one overcast, humid August day with his photographer friend, who lives in suburban Winnetka and teaches at the Illinois Institute of Technology. "South of Kankakee" Plowden says, sounding like an English actor father is "real country." They stop first in the drab railroad town of Chebanse, where Plowden paces, studying the scene before mounting his favorite Hasselblad 500-C on a tripod, and telling McCullough how one can waste a whole day and never take a picture if one spends too long getting started. McCullough inventories Chebanse's colorful sites in his notebook. In a cafy, Plowden enthuses about the scale of the Midwest and wonders why skyscrapers first develop here rather than on a crowded island like Manhattan. Now past fifty, Plowden has spent most of...