Time for Frankie Coolin

The acclaimed journalist and author delivers “a raw and vivid slice of Chicago” in a novel that explores the changing tide of race, class and politics (The New York Times).

Time for Frankie Coolin is the story of a plasterer turned landlord in Chicago who, in the late 1970s, buys abandoned buildings and makes them just habitable enough to charge minimal rent from his mostly black tenants. In this way, Frankie is able to move his family to a house in the suburbs.

But Frankie’s well-ordered life comes apart when a casual favor for a cousin combined with a random act of arson set in motion a cascade of crises. Suddenly, Frankie’s up against menacing G-men and threats of prison if he doesn’t talk. But since talking has never been one of Frankie’s strengths, he copes as he always has: by trying to tough it out on his own.

Time for Frankie Coolin is both a psychological thriller and a ’70s Chicago period piece that shines a surprisingly sympathetic light on the often-overlooked people who lived, worked, and died at the city’s margins. This edition includes a foreword by Bill Savage.