Ebook121 pages2 hours
Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Cabdrivers and their yellow taxis are as much a part of the cityscape as the high-rise buildings and the subway. We hail them without thought after a wearying day at the office or an exuberant night on the town. And, undoubtedly, taxi drivers have stories to tell—of farcical local politics, of colorful passengers, of changing neighborhoods and clandestine shortcuts. No one knows a city’s streets—and thus its heart—better than its cabdrivers. And from behind the wheel of his taxi, Dmitry Samarov has seen more of Chicago than most Chicagoans will hope to experience in a lifetime.
An artist and painter trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Samarov began driving a cab in 1993 to make ends meet, and he’s been working as a taxi driver ever since. In Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab, he recounts tales that will delight, surprise, and sometimes shock the most seasoned urbanite. We follow Samarov through the rhythms of a typical week, as he waits hours at the garage to pick up a shift, ferries comically drunken passengers between bars, delivers prostitutes to their johns, and inadvertently observes drug deals. There are long waits with other cabbies at O’Hare, vivid portraits of street corners and their regular denizens, amorous Cubs fans celebrating after a game at Wrigley Field, and customers who are pleasantly surprised that Samarov is white—and tell him so. Throughout, Samarov’s own drawings—of his fares, of the taxi garage, and of a variety of Chicago street scenes—accompany his stories. In the grand tradition of Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Mike Royko, and Studs Terkel, Dmitry Samarov has rendered an entertaining, poignant, and unforgettable vision of Chicago and its people.
An artist and painter trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Samarov began driving a cab in 1993 to make ends meet, and he’s been working as a taxi driver ever since. In Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab, he recounts tales that will delight, surprise, and sometimes shock the most seasoned urbanite. We follow Samarov through the rhythms of a typical week, as he waits hours at the garage to pick up a shift, ferries comically drunken passengers between bars, delivers prostitutes to their johns, and inadvertently observes drug deals. There are long waits with other cabbies at O’Hare, vivid portraits of street corners and their regular denizens, amorous Cubs fans celebrating after a game at Wrigley Field, and customers who are pleasantly surprised that Samarov is white—and tell him so. Throughout, Samarov’s own drawings—of his fares, of the taxi garage, and of a variety of Chicago street scenes—accompany his stories. In the grand tradition of Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Mike Royko, and Studs Terkel, Dmitry Samarov has rendered an entertaining, poignant, and unforgettable vision of Chicago and its people.
Related to Hack
Related ebooks
Chicago Shakedown: The Ogden Gas Scandal Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of . . . Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Big Man, A Fast Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Told You I Wasn't Perfect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deadline Poets Society: A Writer's Life in Newspapers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Real Life Taxi Driver: A Biography of Arthur Herman Bremer (The Real Inspiration of Travis Bickle) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters of William Gaddis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Baltimore Sports: Stories from Charm City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrank Norris and American Naturalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Actor's Detective Guide to Writing Letters to Celebrities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHuntington Beach Chronicles: The Heart of Surf City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSterling Township: 1875-1968 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Bell Still Rings: My Life of Defiance and Song Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlunkitt of Tammany Hall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEast Bay Grease Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCouch Detective: Couch Detective Book 1, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Essay About James Garfield Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder in the 1920s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVandover and the Brute Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudy Guide to Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux by John Updike Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDrive-Ins of Colorado Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnights of New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1980: America's Pivotal Year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Democracy: the Con of the Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Was I Thinking?: The Autobiography of an Idea and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Modern Virtue: On Descartes, Darwin, and Locke Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDrive-Ins of Route 66, Expanded Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSnapshots of My Father, John Silber Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Long Snapper: A Second Chance, a Super Bowl, a Lesson for Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Biographies For You
Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Baldwin: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Bookseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, an Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Best of Maya Angelou: The Voice of Inspiration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Molly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Life Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Teacher Man: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman Who Could Not Forget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writers and Their Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Hack
Rating: 3.70833335 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There's a part of me that has always longed to be able to experience life through other people..that part of me is the writer that identifies with what Samarov is doing. That isn't to say that driving a cab isn't hard, brutal, scary work but to be in the underbelly of Chicago is still a fascinating experience even when terrifying.
Dmitry explores all the unique people he meets in what seems like a typical week for him as well as a little about holidays and routine maintenance hell that cab drivers in Chicago have to put up with on a daily basis. I would have liked for a much longer read but this is a decent introduction that hopefully he will be able to write more about later. Even though he admits himself he gets only glimpses into random folk, it's usually enough and between Dmitry's drawings which even with some crudeness capture the essence of the lost souls he encounters and the wry sense of insight he has, he can tell a good story. Of course, this is one case where true life can be stranger than fiction.
Dmitry captures the essence of a variety of re-occurring themes here of class, racism, and the games people play with one another with a great wryness. I have a soft spot for him between twitter and seeing him at random indie band shows but my experience in general with cabs outside of him has not been great. Mainly, I experience them from the outside while riding my bike. They never pull over even when there is ample space and it causes dangerous congestion often. The passengers sometimes don't exit curbside like they are supposed to and I've nearly been doored by them. I also have never seen a cab driver ever signal to let me know he's ready to pull out or to pull over. I've even seen a cab driver hit a bicyclist while doing a spontaneous U-turn when he, not the bicyclist who was going through a green light at Milwaukee and Wood, was clearly in the wrong. (The cab driver pulled over and then argued with this bicyclist after he had hit him, which was so astounding considering the cab driver was CLEARLY in the wrong) So, when I read some of the criticisms of bicyclists, I had to remind myself Dmitry is dealing with the dumb messengers who don't look, weave in and out, and make everyone's driving and riding experience a perilous venture into traffic hell. At the same time, some balance to say not all bicyclists are like this would be preferable. Though, I have to say, most cab drivers I've run into are nothing like Dmitry either. I say this because doubtless all cab drivers have one story or another to tell but few go to the lengths Dmitry has to tell it and his experiences are definitely worth reading about.
Some favorite quotes:
pg. 22-23 "These people, and many others less memorable, serve as signposts all across this town. There's some kinship between them and the hacks who haunt these avenues; these forgotten shades serve as the only constant company on deserted streets at any hour of the day or night. Their presence reaffirms our own, while also reminding us of the merciless repetition of this work."
pg. 26 "If cars are fish, then city buses are the whales in the water of the thoroughfare."
pg. 37 "Vampire Hours: Hauling up and down empty avenues on winter weeknights can be its own kind of purgatory."
pg. 44 "Fog comes in and hides the skyscrapers just as the last of the graying milky daylight fades. Streetlamps light no more than a few feet in any direction before being consumed by murky cotton wadding that now binds all forms together. Streets driven thousands of times bear no resemblance to their former selves, transformed into stage sets for Gothic tales-or slasher flicks depending on one's age and taste."
pg. 45 "It just isn't a night for certainty."
pg. 105 (Holiday: Stanley Cup) "Working on this night, as with so many other festive nights, sets one necessarily apart from the masses. Climbing onto the bandwagon at this point would've been ludicrous in any case. Hockey just doesn't do a thing for me."
pg. 115 "Driving away, I think no apology for the human race would suffice to make this thing right."
pg. 119 "A woman weaves wildly in and out of traffic. The cat on her lap has two paws on the wheel. Not certain who's steering."
"A drunk girl staggers across the street and asks to be taken to the Hotel Allegory."
pg. 121 "We were only friends when she was into irony."
Book preview
Hack - Dmitry Samarov
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1