BOOK REVIEW
By RICHARD J. SHEREIKIS

This is Chicago, sez Royko

Mike Royko, Sez Who? Sez Me,
New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1982, 263 pp. $13.95

THERE CAN'T be many tougher jobs than being a daily columnist for a newspaper. Imagine it. Every day, you have to have at least one decent idea, one insight, one interesting thought. You'd go through as many in a week as some people do in a lifetime, pounding them out for a public that often refuses to read anything that isn't purely informative or practical.

That's why we have to respect Mike Royko, who's been doing this kind of thing for decades now and hitting the mark more often than not. He writes clinkers, too, as anyone must who gets out a thousand words or so five days a week, but the amazing thing is the number of times he writes something that makes you say, "Good work, Mike. You put it to 'em that time."

That's what he does best, of course — put it to people who are pompous or hypocritical or cruelly corrupt. And his newest collection, Sez Who? Sez Me, does nothing to suggest he's lost his touch over all these years. What he's given us here are 92 columns gathered from the past 10 years, organized into eight sections, on things like bar room legends and lore ("Boilermakers and Bar Stools"), sports figures ("Jocks and Jerks") and politics and politicians ("Smoke-Filled Rooms"). You can dip in anywhere and find something that will make you laugh or make you mad, but make you happy that Royko is around to keep people honest.

He can be informative in his own kind of way, as in "What 'Clout' Is and Isn't," in which he corrects David Broder, the national columnist. Broder had mistakenly used the term to describe what James R. Thompson had as U.S. attorney during his term in that office. "If what Thompson has is 'clout,'" Royko explains, "then charisma is some kind of Spanish soup." Thompson, Royko says, was actually an enemy of clout, which has nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with legal evasions, as in "Nah, I don't need a building permit — I got clout in City Hall"; or "Ever since my clout died, they've been making me work a full eight hours. I've never worked an eight-hour week before"; or "My clout sent a letter to the mayor recommending me for a judgeship. Maybe I'll enroll in law school." It's a handy primer on Chicago-ese.

If you want a portrait of a Chicago legend, you'll want to read Royko's farewell to Richard J. Daley. Royko had taken Daley on in Boss, of course, and there wasn't a surplus of love between them. But Royko respected the mayor, and "A Tribute" stands as evidence of that respect and understanding. Daley reflected his city, Royko writes: "He wasn't graceful, suave, witty, or smooth. But, then, this is not Paris or San Francisco. He was raucous, sentimental, hot-tempered, practical, simple, devious, big, and powerful. This is, after all, Chicago." And Royko prophetically describes Daley's real legacy: "Well, he's left behind the ingredients for the best political donnybrook we've had in fifty years. They'll be kicking and gouging, grabbing and tripping, elbowing and kneeing to grab all, or a thin sliver of the power he left behind." Da Mare shoulda seen the mayoral primary. He woulda loved it.

The only trouble with the book is that it sounds kind of familiar. The grind of a daily column takes many tolls, and one of them is that it doesn't leave much time for growth or change. Sez Who? Sez Me sounds a lot like Royko's other collections, in other words, and it almost makes you wish he'd take a leave for a while, as Garry Trudeau is doing with his Doonesbury cast, and just rest, read and recharge his batteries. But Royko might say to that suggestion what Red Smith once said to a suggestion that he cut back from six to three columns a week. "Look," said Smith, "suppose I write three stinkers. I wouldn't have the rest of the week to recover."□

Richard J. Shereikis is professor of literature at Sangamon State University. He grew up on the south side of Chicago.

March 1983 | Illinois Issues | 7