Not many Chicago writers would mind being mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Algren, but Rick Kogan read the Sunday Tribune and was bewildered. Here was drama critic Chris Jones writing about Rachel Shteir’s now notorious review of three Chicago books, published the week before in the New York Times. Shteir had made a bizarrely overstated case against the city, and Kogan belonged to the multitude that didn’t think much of it. But now Jones seemed to be endorsing the review at Algren’s expense. And Studs Terkel’s. And Roger Ebert’s. And Rick Kogan’s.
Kogan isn’t some cheap perfume. Chicago journalism is almost as dynastic as Chicago politics, and Kogan is its rawest, most complicated heir. His father, Herman Kogan, was—as journalists of a certain age like to say about each other—legendary. In 1963 he founded Panorama, the weekend culture section of the late, great Daily News. Later he was literary editor of the Sun-Times. On weekends he talked about books on WFMT. He wrote books brimming with local lore.
When Kogan ran Tempo he had a brilliant staff and they wrote about everything under the sun. Then the Tribune, perversely, decided to tear Tempo apart. Kogan was moved out, and I wondered if he’d quit. He’d told me Tempo editor would be the last Tribune job he ever held.
Kogan still has a copy of Ebert’s Behan piece—written when Ebert was 21—and he tells me that if he’d been at the Chicago Theatre for Ebert’s celebration he would have read from it. His voice, steeped in whiskey and nicotine, would have done both Ebert and Behan full justice.
