Walking Chicago's Coast: A 63-Mile Journey to the Indiana Dunes

by Michael McColly

Overview

Blending travelogue, memoir, and environmental reportage, Walking Chicago's Coast takes readers on an urban journey. Michael McColly begins his walk at his far–North Side Chicago apartment and proceeds for two long days along the shore of Lake Michigan to the Indiana Dunes National Park. As he walks, McColly reflects on the layers of history, the constructed magnificence, and the troubling divides in this polyglot mecca of the Midwest.

From its descriptions of grand parks and architecture to packed sandy beaches to polluted neighborhoods called "sacrifice zones" along industrial waterways and rivers, Walking Chicago's Coast shows how such urban hiking lets one contemplate a city's grandeur and history, confront environmental and social realities, and trigger emotions and memories. Through Superfund sites, brownfields, scrapyards, and industrial ruins, McColly discovers the remarkable patterns of urban nature and the surprising beauty along his path.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501783159
Publisher:	Northern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	186
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael McColly's essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Review, and The Sun magazine. He is the author of the Lambda Literary Award–winning memoir The After-Death Room, chronicling his journey reporting on AIDS activism in Africa, Asia, and the United States.

Table of Contents

I. Beginnings
II. North Side
III. South Side
IV. Into Indiana
V. The Indiana Dunes

What People are Saying About This

Rob Nixon

McColly's improbable pilgrimage along Chicago's coast testifies to walking's transformative powers. This is a work of great wisdom, tenderness, and defiance destined to be a classic of urban literature.

David Shields

Michael McColly, in his beautiful new book, adds something new to the walking/thinking/essaying gesture: genuine feeling. Walking Chicago's Coast is a rhapsody of grief and appreciation.

Scott Russell Sanders

McColly shows us the glories and flaws of a great city, its economic and racial divisions, and its devastated outskirts. He also shows us people working to mend communities and restore degraded lands.