The trial of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, slated to begin later this month, has been postponed until January. We’ll have to wait till then to see if Burge is found guilty of lying under oath about the interrogations-by-torture he allegedly conducted at Area Two headquarters in the 1980s. But on October 12, we can get a look at the latest work on the subject of police torture by John Conroy, whose reporting in the Reader exposed a situation that for many years no one else wanted to talk or write about. Conroy won’t be adding to his basket of awards for investigative journalism with this piece, however: if it wins a Pulitzer, it’ll be in the drama category. In My Kind of Town, Conroy’s maiden voyage as a playwright, the diligent journalist boils two decades of reporting on torture down to a dramatic core—a play in two acts. It’s part of the Writers’ Bloc reading series at the Theatre Building.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Conroy says it was a suggestion from an editor that started him on the torture trail, more of a business decision than a mission. In 1987, Beacon Press had published Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life, a book he’d written about the troubles in Northern Ireland, where the British had codified the Five [Torture] Techniques and the IRA was handling juvenile delinquents with a bullet to the kneecap. Knopf editor Ann Close read it and in 1988 proposed that Conroy write a book on torture. His first foray into the subject was an article on Uptown’s Kovler Center for the Treatment of Victims (now “Survivors”) of Torture published that year in the Reader, where he was a staff writer. Meanwhile, a friend who worked for Chicago Lawyer called his attention to cop killer Andrew Wilson, who said he’d been tortured by police and whose case was coming up in federal court. Conroy says he “went down and sat in the courtroom on the first day thinking this guy had no shot at all.” Wilson was a “career criminal,” who was accusing “these outstanding detectives, with many commendations, one of whom had been decorated for valor in Vietnam.” And then, he says, “the whole thing unraveled.” The Wilson case led to dozens of accusations of torture against Burge and officers working under his command.
Conroy, who started college intending to be a stockbroker, says writing about torture turned out to be a bad business decision and “is no way to support a family and send a couple of kids to college.” Unspeakable Acts is still out there, in hardcover and paperback, but the Belfast book sells better. Meanwhile, Hancock told Conroy he wouldn’t be mounting My Kind of Town, leaving Conroy with a product to market in a business he knows little about.
