The best $16 you’ll spend all summer will be on Never a City So Real….It’s a fine successor to Nelson Algren’s Chicago: City on the Make as a song to our rough-and-tumble, broken-nosed city…”
–– Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times 

Chicago is an awfully big place to fit into a small book, but Kotlowitz is amaster of distillation….Kotlowitz is an omnivorous observer,discerning listener, and unassuming witness to urban life…. (Never a City So Real is) clear-eyed testimony to his great affection for this no-nonsense city and his infinite fascination with humankind. –– Donna Seaman, Booklist
 
   
 
 

"A riveting portrait of a racially troubled America in the 1990's"
--Publishers Weekly

"A vivid American microcosm, a telling tableau of the way we are."
–– The New York Times

 

  
   
 
 

“Alex Kotlowitz’s story informs the heart. His meticulous portrait of the two boys in a Chicago housing project shows how much heroism is required to survive, let alone escape.”  –– New York Times
 
“In chronicling the lives of two brothers in the Henry Horner projects, Kotlowitz has achieved a triumph of empathy as well as a signficant feat of reporting.” –– Los Angeles Times
 
“Amid the darkness and ever-present despair, Kotlowitz beautifully captures the moments of brightness and hope. Easily could become the 1990s equivalent of Michael Harrington’s The Other America.”
–– San Francisco Chronicle