{"id":163889,"date":"2025-08-21T13:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163889\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T13:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:43:09","slug":"theodore-c-van-alst-jr-on-the-el-about-one-1979-day-in-the-life-of-a-chicago-street-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163889\/","title":{"rendered":"Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. on “The El,” About One 1979 Day in the Life of A Chicago Street Gang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The plot of Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.\u2019s debut novel \u201cThe El\u201d is simple\u2014it\u2019s one August, 1979 day in the life of a Chicago street gang. The main character, Teddy, must lead a posse of Simon City Royals across the city for a gathering of gangs at Roosevelt High School. A betrayal happens, and some bloody trouble.<\/p>\n

But describing the plot does nothing to sum up \u201cThe El\u201d\u2014a lively, poetic novel about finding beauty in unexpected places, about seeing things that others don\u2019t see, and seeking love outside of the family of your birth. And it has passages that take your breath away:<\/p>\n

Magic light, golden hour, is an amazing time anywhere, but in Chicago it\u2019s otherworldly. Maybe it happens only if you\u2019re from here, in a for real way, but every alley, back porch, park, boulevard, lake, lagoon or river, skyscraper, zoo, school, bridge, or train track shows off its ghosts, their spirits shimmering beside, behind, and above them, frail and pale blue gray, silver highlights cut fleeting outlines at the edge of your vision, all of it coming together to impart an unnamable feeling of calm and wonder that\u2019ll make you get up the next morning just to wait all day for it to come again.<\/p>\n

A professor of Indigenous nations studies at Portland State University, Van Alst says that the story about the gang gathering really happened, though the novel is fiction. Inspired by Sol Yurick\u2019s \u201cThe Warriors,\u201d \u201cThe El\u201d is told mostly by Ted, but it also has the voices of other characters, like Lil Demon and Lil Capone. Gang signs Chicagoans have seen spraypainted on garage roofs and El girders are included in the typescript\u2014a crown for the Imperial Gangsters, for example, and a six-pointed star for the Black Gangster Disciples.<\/p>\n

Van Alst started the story because he missed the El and wanted to write a short piece about what it was like riding the train. But then the story opened up, and old friends from his North Side adolescence in the seventies climbed aboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people hopped on, and it was like, \u2018Remember that one time we were all on the El?\u2019 and it took over from there,\u201d says Van Alst.<\/p>\n

An enrolled member of the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, Van Alst is the co-editor of \u201cNever Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology\u201d and the story collections \u201cSacred Smokes.\u201d In the book, Ted is the gang\u2019s only Indigenous member, and he calls on the spirit of Coyote to help him in his mission.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.<\/p>\n

Van Alst says the novel takes place before gang life got scarier in the 1980s. The eighties saw more guns and anonymous violence. For the kids he grew up with, their parents were often not around and gangs were their \u201cmade\u201d family.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou depend on them and you depend on each other\u2026 [Something] that was enforced was a sort of loyalty to each other,\u201d Van Alst says. \u201cThere were a lot of rules and you just couldn\u2019t break those rules. There was a price to pay for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says many Native kids in the city are not connected to their heritage, but are trying to figure it out. \u201cTheir parents may or may not tell them things and teach them things,\u201d Van Alst says. \u201cThere are kids who have grandparents who tell them stories and tell them who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The character Teddy doesn\u2019t have a mentor\u2014he has been kicked out of his mother\u2019s house and lives with his dad, who\u2019s only peripherally involved, Van Alst says. \u201cI think Coyote steps in and says, \u2018I\u2019ll show you some things. It\u2019s not going to be easy. We\u2019re not going to make things easy for you\u2026 But it can be done. It\u2019s not a woe-is-us kind of story. I don\u2019t write those kinds of stories. I don\u2019t believe in that. I don\u2019t like that. It will be difficult, but it will be worth it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Ted\u2019s power is his love of the city and of books\u2014he knows Roosevelt was the high school of both Nelson Algren and Shel Silverstein. As he heads off to the gang gathering, Ted carries Mike Royko\u2019s \u201cBoss\u201d in his pocket.<\/p>\n

For Ted, \u201cthe city is his reservation, it\u2019s where he\u2019s from, he knows the streets, he knows the alleys, he knows how to get around. That becomes an integral part of his life,\u201d Van Alst explains.<\/p>\n

In the book\u2019s acknowledgements, Van Alst thanks his wife and children for tolerating his endless talk about his hometown. He calls his city of Portland \u201ccute,\u201d but not Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love Chicago. I love the roots. I love what it can do, what it stands for, how different it looks from other big cities,\u201d says Van Alst. \u201cChicago is a really unique place. It\u2019s more a place you\u2019re from than a place you go to. It\u2019s not like New York City, it\u2019s not like Los Angeles. It\u2019s a city of real villages and real folk, and the food is the best in the world. Hands down.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a kid, Van Alst says he read everything, including shampoo bottles. He read Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen Vincent Benet in elementary school. \u201cThen when I got older but way too young, I read Stephen King, \u2018The Exorcist\u2019 and \u2018Jaws,\u2019 things in the popular realm,\u201d he says. Jackie Collins helped him write good dialogue. He also loves Royko. \u201cI was always a Sun-Times guy. You can read it on the El.\u201d Other inspirations include Patricia Highsmith and Catherine Dunne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe El\u201d is just 192 pages, a good size for a week of \u201cEl\u201d rides to work. Van Alst says he doesn\u2019t like big \u201cchonky\u201d novels. \u201cTry to keep it trim, try to make sure the words count, make the words meaningful and convey things,\u201d Van Alst advises. \u201cI am not averse to writing a sentence somebody might have to read twice, but that\u2019s because I want to convey a lot in that sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Alst says it\u2019s a \u201ccrime\u201d that kids these days are less likely to read books. But he notes that kids do read, more than we think. They read short things\u2014memes and stories\u2014and educators must meet them where they are.<\/p>\n

He likes short-form writing himself. \u201cWith \u2018Sacred Smokes,\u2019 every one of them was about long enough to have a cigarette,\u201d Van Alst says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are ways to do it, to help people read,\u201d Van Alst says. \u201cI think it\u2019s something smarter people than me need to figure out. But I hope that we do. Because reading is magic. It really is. You\u2019re carrying around an entire world in your head or in your pocket, in a book. There\u2019s nothing else like that. You make an entire world come alive, using words.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe El\u201d<\/strong>
By Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.<\/strong>
Vintage, 192 pages<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mary Wisniewski is a Chicago writer and author of \u201cAlgren: A Life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plot of Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.\u2019s debut novel \u201cThe El\u201d is simple\u2014it\u2019s one August, 1979 day…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-163889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}