Fire on the Prairie

"A master journalist’s fascinating chronicle"

Drive-By

"The book reads like good fiction"

Fire on the Prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the Politics of Race

"Gary Rivlin saw clearly what other journalists were blind to, and reported what they had non-reported. He was to the Chicago political scene what I.F. Stone was to the national picture."

-Studs Terkel

"Colorfully, intimately, Fire on the Prairie shames and instructs as it entertains, weaving a skein of anecdotes and vignettes into a civic conversation about race and power."

-Jim Sleeper, The Washington Post Book World

"Fire on the Prairie is a master journalist’s fascinating chronicle of the Harold Washington mayorality elections and the intervening ‘Council War.’ The book is rich in intriguing behind-the-scenes incidents. Rivlin makes the reader live those years."

-Leon Despres, The Chicago Sun-Times

"A fascinating tale of racial hostilities and political betrayals."

-Black Enterprise

"Gary Rivlin has woven a vivid and compelling story that helps to remind us all how the subject of race is always percolating below the surface, ready to explode. A wonderful book."

-Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here

DRIVE-BY

"Like Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) or Norman Mailer (The Executioner’s Song) Rivlin takes a crime and makes of it a mirror for its time and place. Yet Drive-By emits a low hum of pure despair that sounds new in the annals of American bloodshed…a gifted California reporter…[with] a sharp eye and a clear voice."

-Boyd Tonkin, New Statesman (Great Britain)

"Emblematic of the helpless fury and self-destructive codes of street justice prevailing in the inner city…an impressive marshalling of facts."

-Darcy Frey, New York Times Book Review

"Rivlin’s gift is his ability to make his subjects whole and human…The book reads like good fiction, peppered with tough language and pervaded by suspense. It is a tightly written story about a collection of lives bound by the circumstances of murder."

-Zachary Dowdy, Boston Globe

"Rivlin chronicles a familiar tragedy, but he has given it a human face…a deeply moving account of horrors that arrive in an instant but just won’t go away…[an] excellent investigative book."

-Jackie Jones, San Francisco Chronicle

"A fascinating read from beginning to end. Its message lingers not in your dreams but in your nightmares."

-Jeanne May, Detroit Free Press

"Rivlin’s dissection of the crime itself is compelling enough. But even more so is the way in which he shows how modern inner-city life makes such unthinkable crimes inevitable….Spare and direct, Drive-By is rife with cruel irony."

-John D. Thomas, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Powerful; a rich exploration of a surprisingly multifaceted crime."

-Kirkus Review

Carl Sandburg Award for Non-Fiction, 1992, Fire on the Prairie

Chicago Sun-Times's Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 1992, Fire on the Prairie

California Newspaper Publishers' Association, best writer for a non-daily newspaper, 1993

San Francisco Bay Area Media Alliance's "Print Journalism" prize, 1993

Society for Professional Journalists, Best Enterprise reporting, 1993

Non-fiction finalist, Pen-WEST's "Best of West," 1995, Drive-By

San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association non-fiction book of year, finalist, 1995, Drive-By

New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1995, Drive-By

California Bar Association's "Gold Medallion" award, 1996