The Plan of Chicago has an unusual structure –nine linked stories set in nine Chicago neighborhoods – and
unusual range. The characters – half men, half women – include immigrants from Poland, Mexico, Ireland, and Somalia. They
work as housepainters, taxi drivers, sketch artists, and scam artists – often exploited by or exploiting others to make it in an unforgiving city. Chicago features heavily in these characters’ plans, though the plan of Chicago – shaped by divisions of race, class, gender, violence – often forces them apart. Despite that division, incongruous lives intersect here in unexpected ways. An Irish tradesman in a changing neighborhood struggles with the complications of befriending an African American coworker. His boss’s self-absorbed wife, a Polish immigrant, learns to count people in new ways working for the U.S. Census. A Romanian boy who helps his father fake accidents tests the limits of filial loyalty, and the insurance claims adjustor investigating his case confronts dark baggage when his partner works with rape victims. Through these varied characters – Black and White, straight and gay, wealthy and working-class – Pearce captures the breadth and depth of the city that sits dead center in America and perhaps better than any other, can reveal its promise and flaws.
Cornerstone Press/November 2025
Trade Paper/ISBN: 978-1-968148-11-9
Price: U.S. $25.95/5.5 x 8.5/258 pages
Distributor: Ingram
BIO: Barry Pearce’s parents immigrated to the U.S. and settled on the South Side of
Chicago, where he grew up with six siblings. He graduated from Northwestern University
– the first in his family to attend college – and earned an MFA in creative writing in New
Mexico. He has won the Nelson Algren Award Grand Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Award,
and The Mercedes Delos Jacobs Book Prize. Pearce lives in Chicago, where he ghostwrites
nonfiction books and occasionally teaches. Visit www.BarryPearce.com.
