Prize-winning Book Captures the Magic
and Innocence
of a Chicago Boyhood
KANSAS CITY, Mo.— The University of Missouri-Kansas
City’s BkMk Press announces the July 1, 2005, publication of Billy
Lombardo’s new collection, The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories,
winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction.
“Billy Lombardo’s world is the Italian neighborhood of
Bridgeport in Chicago, and his imaginative recreation of it is wonderfully
evocative, convincing and appealing.” writes Final Judge Gladys Swan.
Lombardo shares his world through the eyes of Petey
Bellapini, an endearing soul based not-so-loosely on Lombardo’s own
Bridgeport boyhood, a place and time of great significance to the author.
“Lombardo gets everything right,” writes Booklist in its advance
praise for the book, “from a sensitive boy’s struggle to say and do the
right thing in delicate situations to Chicago’s impossible weather, as he
celebrates the marvels of boyhood and everyday life.”
Marc Smith, creator of the poetry slam and author of
Crowdpleaser, says that “Billy’s fictional recollections of Bridgeport
run counter to the stereotypical descriptions of this historically political
and often violent section of Chicago’s South Side. Reading them, one
rediscovers the indomitable goodness that abides within the boys (and girls
and punks) on the block and the citizen-parents who watch them from their
two-flat windows above.”
From pitching nickels on the sidewalks and mopping
floors in Dressel’s Bakery, to the pain of failing one’s father and the
tenderness of first love, Petey comes of age in these honest and
heartwarming stories.
“Lombardo knows this world intimately and writes with a
naturalness that makes his street-smart surface wholly convincing, but the
seeming effortlessness of his storytelling depends on a sophisticated sense
of craft and a deep sense of empathy.” – Stuart Dybek, author of I
Sailed With Magellan.
Billy Lombardo began writing as a poet in the Chicago
slam poetry scene. His fiction has appeared in such publications as
StoryQuarterly, Other Voices, Cicada, and the Bryant Literary Review. He
teaches fiction and directs the Service Learning Program at The Latin School
of Chicago, where he also serves as the faculty sponsor for Polyphony H.S.,
a new national literary magazine for high school writers. A graduate of
Loyola University and a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, he now lives
in Forest Park with his wife, Elisa, a singer/songwriter, and their sons
Seth and Kane. Lombardo writes for The Forest Park Post, and can be
reached through his website,
www.billylombardo.com.
The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories
