Steve Monroe

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'57, Chicago

USA Today
Boxing champ Larry Holmes once said, “All fighters are prostitutes and all promoters are pimps.” In Steve Monroe's first book, '57, Chicago, the former newspaper reporter fleshes out a similar portrait of life in and around the ring. Monroe makes heroes out of shady characters in the world of boxing, bookies and the Mob. They're not always likable or deep, but they're interesting enough to keep the story moving and the reader engaged, even a reader with little or no interest in boxing….This is a story with a plot that builds, twists and turns in the tradition of classic crime/suspense pulp fiction. But Monroe manages to throw in a few unanticipated jabs whenever the action lags.

The Onion
'57, Chicago
(Talk/Miramax)
Steve Monroe's debut novel, '57, Chicago, won't win any sensitivity awards, but it's a fast-moving, iconography-heavy piece of pulp sports fiction best summed up by a central character's simplistic but colorful proclamation—"Chicago: The Jews own it, the Micks run it, and the niggers live in it." The book works through a veritable checklist of racial epithets and stereotypes, as its tough-minded, foul-mouthed wops/ dagoes, hymies/kikes, niggers/shines/coons, and their associated quiff/cooze compete to see who can wring the most "juice" out of a highly anticipated heavyweight boxing match. Promoter Eddie "The Lip" Lipranski sees introverted boxer Junior "Hammer" Hamilton as his ticket to clearing an old debt to an increasingly dangerous syndicate heavy-hitter. Layoff bookie Al Kelly, having just taken a devastating financial hit trying to cover a basketball game after his support network mysteriously disappeared, is getting leaned on by the same syndicate man and his boss. Hamilton himself is blackmailed by a greasy, gold-toothed pimp straight out of a Pam Grier movie. Everybody around them has an angle or wants a cut, from the Illinois State Boxing Commission to the Mayor of Bronzeville to the paraplegic cop who thinks the fight might lead him to a long-hated organized-crime boss…The entire package is as brief, breezy, and atmospheric as an Elmore Leonard crime caper, with the boxing match itself as the caper.
--Tasha Robinson

Esquire
THE LINE: Chicago in the mid-fifties. A boxing promoter named Eddie "The Lip" Liprankski and his black fighter Junior "The Hammer" Hamilton. A foxy fur-coat-wearing girlfriend. The Big Fight. Money. Bookies. The fight's fixed. All you need for a noir novel, it would seem, yet '57, Chicago ranks many notches above your run-of-the-mill boxing novel. Monroe writes in a slangy, gritty, knife-edged style that packs a big wallop. ALSO NOTE: Boxing fiction is a big thing lately (witness the critical and commercial success of F.X. Toole's story collection Rope Burns last year), and Monroe's debut is a welcome addition to the genre. The plot is fairly conventional stuff, but newcomer Monroe's dialogue – and there's a ton of dialogue here – is really good: "'Bounced, shmounced, you fucking circus freak. Throw on a fur coat so some hunter shoots your ass. Better yet, just take off your shirt. You probably look like a bear even without the coat.'"
--Adrienne Miller

Ottawa Sun
Less imaginative and talented writers than Monroe, a former reporter and real estate broker, would have gone the predictable route for an ending. But he manages to cook up enough of a plot twist -- a couple, in fact -- that takes this crackling first effort to a higher plain.

It requires a bit of grinding to manoeuvre through the first quarter of the book, mainly trying to keep track of all the players and secondary plots as well as all the bookie talk. In fact, I learned enough about bookmaking to consider taking it up as a second summer job.