Sacred City

By Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
University of New Mexico Press (2021)
174 pages

Review by Ryan Winn

Theodore C. Van Alst jr.’s writing is not confined by precedent. The second in an eventual trilogy, Sacred City’s semi-autobiographical protagonist Teddy travels many of the same Chicago streets as he did in its predecessor, Sacred Smoke, but this time with a bit more swagger. Teddy is still a rebellious, brilliant, loyal young man, but in his latest outing he has come into his voice as a storyteller. He is both the street-smart, “autodidactic” high school dropout who embodies the stories as they are told, as well as the reference-dropping, erudite academic he’s on the path to becoming.

Within the collection’s 23 stories, Teddy travels Chicago’s sites, mingling with characters who are either well-versed in postcolonial Native history or the late-20th century gang lifestyle. In a text where crime and friendship coalesce to form a salve for the wounds of generational trauma, Van Alst mixes terse prose about his characters’ actions with witticisms that somehow both propel readers forward and cause them to pause for introspection. In the opening story, “The Boys Are Back in Town,” he writes figuratively about a “dark night”— “I was desperate. I tried to sell my soul to the devil, and he just laughed. Put his lucky strike out on the back of my hand and walked through the bedroom door.” In a moment of blunt assessment in “Tecumseh at the Tower,” Van Alst writes of the federal policy of Indian relocation— “They said it was for jobs and opportunities. I think it was because they were afraid of communism. America survives best when they have something to be afraid of. And the vaguer, the better.” In a cathartic, resonate scene in “Up Yours, Tom Wolfe,” we read of Teddy’s bonding with his abusive father— “We drank a lot that night. Confessional drinking. jesus probably leaned in at some point, called upon Creator, and said, ‘Pfffft. These two need’a go to bed.’” Although the weight of the things the characters carry seems at times unbearable, Van Alst’s humor lightens the load.

With Sacred Smoke, Van Alst has drafted another engaging missive on coming of age as a relocated Native in the Windy City of the 1980s, but the book is about both the journey and the destination. Chicago is very much a character in this work, offering its streets, locales, and monuments as the backdrop and the canvas for Van Alst’s creative reflection. In the acknowledgements, the author shares an ode that begins— “Chicago *****, my city, my rez. I miss you every day.” Readers of this unflinching book will recognize the beauty within the asphalt jungle. just as the gang members of his youth covered walls with graffiti, Van Alst has tagged the cityscape as his own.

Ryan Winn, MA, teaches in the Liberal Studies Department at College of Menominee Nation and is a columnist for TCJ.