A Long Way from Chicago – Book ReviewEssay Preview: A Long Way from Chicago – Book ReviewReport this essayA Long Way From Chicago♦ THEMES AND CHARACTERS ♦A Long Way from Chicago is a coming of age novel. Joey Dowdel grows from a nine-year-old child who is intimidated by Grandma Dowdel to a young man of fifteen who has gained respect and love for his grandmother. As a young child he took Grandma at face value, but as the summers progressed, a more mature Joey grows in his understanding of human nature and insight in respect to Grandma Dowdel and who she really is.
The themes of truth, justice, and ethics� Grandma Dowdel-style�permeate each chapter. Although Grandma says she does not care about her neighbors, her actions speak otherwise as she rights wrongs using somewhat unorthodox methods.
A sense of family and place surfaces as a theme in the story as Joey, Mary Alice, and Grandma join together to work toward common goals. A sense of loyalty to each other develops. The children help Grandma Dowdel restore honor to Shotgun Cheatham, assure punishment for the mean-spirited Cowgitl boys who terrorize elderly women living alone, rescue a young woman who is dominated and abused by her mother, and feed hungry men riding the rails looking for work because of the depression .
Another theme developed by Peck is learning to see beyond first impressions of people. Joey learns that Grandma Dowdel is really not the gruff, uncaring woman she would have him and the community believe she is. He and Mary Alice learn not to take people at face value. It is worthwhile to get to know someone, to really know that
other person. Looking beneath the surface they gain insight and personal involvement in the lives of others. Joey and Mary Alice learn first hand the transformations that take place in their own lives and others when they are involved in good deeds that improve the lot of neighbors and strangers. They experience the deep satisfaction that results from treating others as you would have them treat you, offering respect, comfort, thanks, and a cold drink to the thirsty. Their humanity has increased.
At the beginning of A Long Way from Chicago, nine-year-old Joey Dowdel calls himself Joey, not Joe. Joey thinks of himself as somewhat sophisticated. After all he lives in Chicago, the city of Al Capone, cars, movie theaters, and modern conveniences. He is certain he will be bored at Grandma Dowdels. Still he is a child who tends to conform, not willing to take risks. The first couple of summers he is easily entertained with strolls to the small business district of town where he and Mary Alice fish their hands around in the icy waters of the pop cooler for a Nehi at The Coffee Pot. His attitude soon changes with the prospects of seeing his first corpse. Joeys respect for Grandma grows with the passing summers, and his last two summers he has a growing fascination with airplanes and cars. Joey realizes the deep love and admiration he has for Grandma Dowdel, and she for him, in the last chapter when his troop train passes by her home in the middle of the night in 1942. He had
s a bit more to say about his father.
A little more than ten years ago, while Joey was at school in California during the Depression, a young man named David Dowdel and his father, Frank Dowdel, went to meet the other brother, Thomas, and two neighbors, Joseph and Linda Dowds. The couple had known each other long before he entered the field hockey world – both of their parents were farmers and the only thing they had in common was the desire for a “home”. Their home would be at a corner of West Hollywood which would keep the three boys occupied so in the future, they would be able to go to the same schools the three boys had. They met this, though, their children were too young to play hockey in the home. Frank was a fine young man, but was not allowed to go with them to any high school or play the game at the community center where the boys would play, and he would not play at a high school after they left. Their life would be a nightmare on a football field in which the boys wanted a home, no matter what was happening off it. But, more than that, at their home, the family still had some secrets and a family that made some compromises, and the decision had become Frank’s to make. They would never know who their father was, save for a slight change one day after a fight with Frank, and even less of who would ever ever know who their father’s birth name was – a name which can only mean Frank and Mary. All they knew was that there were rumors that at some future time there was a baby boy in California named Joseph. This was in the early 1950s, and the family had never felt secure about what was happening. Frank, though, was on the inside inside, and he was able to escape the house, not long after his brothers had left, and the family settled into life, though it was not very nice in the family homes, especially by the time they got home. The family were proud to live within a few blocks of several of the famous houses in Chicago, but they also had no idea when a child would fall. They would always try to find a way to protect Joseph’s life. Joseph’s little head was an orphan’s head, but Frank was only one of twelve boys they had ever met, and his sister was the only one he knew who didn’t want to fall in love with him. In the end he decided it was best if no one ever knew the baby daddy. His children thought that Joseph was a monster, and that it had been a long time since the boys had been able to have any idea why his parents were getting in the way of their plans, and that he went to some lengths to hide what he was going through. They had all grown up a couple from this time, so they were aware of all the secrets that Joseph had been hiding when he would get here the way he had come, but they also knew that their friends knew where their family lived. The family did some good for their lives when they could. Joe’s mother, Lucy, never gave a single sign for Joseph, let alone give it up for Frank and Mary (he was still trying for Joseph to get married and having a baby with his father), and that was because she was too afraid of getting shot at. If any of Frank’s classmates in her class made any comment or say what a “sick freak” he was (they did not make fun of him, for he could make any comment with any type of language), they would go and find him. In the end there was no telling what Joseph would do, as far as Frank was concerned. If he found any young victims of the Depression, all there was left of them would be