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The Beggars' Shore
When Joseph Askew of Chicago abandons the religious cult of his youth, he expects to gain personal freedom, instead he becomes a slave to drugs and sex. A look at people mired in poverty and despair.
309 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
26 people want to read
About the author
Zak Mucha
13 books12 followersZak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst in private practice and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spent seven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering from severe psychosis, substance abuse issues, and homelessness. Mucha has worked as a counselor and consultant for U.S. combat veterans undergoing training for digital forensic investigations in child pornography.
Before going into the clinical field, Mucha has worked as a freelance journalist, truck driver, furniture mover, construction worker, union organizer, staff member at a juvenile DCFS locked unit, and taught briefly at a women’s prison. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense as well as two collections of poetry, The Ambulatorium (PWIC, 2023), Shadow Box (Albireo MKG, 2019), and a novel, The Heavyweight Champion of Nothing (Dockyard Press, 2021).
More can be found at www.zakmucha.com.
Before going into the clinical field, Mucha has worked as a freelance journalist, truck driver, furniture mover, construction worker, union organizer, staff member at a juvenile DCFS locked unit, and taught briefly at a women’s prison. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense as well as two collections of poetry, The Ambulatorium (PWIC, 2023), Shadow Box (Albireo MKG, 2019), and a novel, The Heavyweight Champion of Nothing (Dockyard Press, 2021).
More can be found at www.zakmucha.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 2, 2020
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski tells of a mentally deficient man who by chance spent his entire life locked up in a house, until his benefactor died. Then he stumbles out upon a world he has never seen before, and comedy and irony result from his naive and candid reactions to the world and also from the reactions of others to him. They keep presuming that there is thought and insight behind the random and television-inspired phrases he tosses around. He is like a figment of their imaginations, by chance magnified to extraordinary proportions -- the ultimate politician, despite himself. Peter Sellers starred in a very effective movie based on that plot.
In The Beggar's Shore by Zak Mucha, Joseph, the main character, also has lived a very sheltered life, rarely allowed out of the confines of a church/cult in the slums of Chicago, until he is 18. When he does break free, the world he sees, takes for granted, and learns to deal with is the world of the homeless and poverty-stricken. Naively and Candide-like, he encounters sexual deviance, drugs, violence, and theft. While he himself steals, sniffs toluene, and sometimes attacks others, he remains largely a simple, good-hearted victim. His main weakness is the gullibility that comes from his unfailing faith in other people, who repeatedly take advantage of him. Even though he grew up in this part of the city, he never before experienced it first hand -- he is very much a stranger in a strange land, a Gulliver who finds himself in one extraordinary unexpected circumstance after another.
On the one hand, the reader gets what appears to be a very realistic view of life on the streets, and what it takes to survive. On the other hand, this tale has strong religious overtones, with its origins in the church where Joseph's life begins. In this sense, Joseph is a "holy fool" in the medieval tradition -- someone whose simple-minded. largely unselfish naivete seems to put him close to God (as in Erasmus' Ship of Fools, Rabelais' Tier Livre, Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris [Hunchback of Notre Dame], Dostoeyvsky's Idiot, and late stories by Leo Tolstoy). In that tradition, reason is the basis of self-interested calculation and premeditation, and an individual who is a bit mentally deficient and thereby incapable of selfishness might in some sense be incorruptible and inherently holy.
As he moves through this hellish slum world, with allegorical dimensions, Joseph understands that he has done wrong, despite good intentions, and keeps expecting and even hoping for the divine retribution he believes he deserves. Sometimes this book reads like a modern Prilgrim's Progress without the hope of salvation.
The use of names adds to the allegorical, medieval feel, "Joseph didn't know any full proper names, just nicknames and titles left over from lives concluded long ago. As if their names didn't matter at all anymore." (p. 211). He deals with the Printer, the Mayor, the Preacher, and with characters only known by their first names. Hence, despite their bizarre behavior, characters are presented as examples or types rather than as unique individuals, with the implication that there are many more like them out there on the streets, not just of Chicago, but of cities around the world.
The matter-of-fact unadorned Hemingway-like style adds to this effect. Most sentences are simple, direct, declarative, short, and to the point. There is very little description. Everything is seen/filtered through Joseph's matter-of-fact mind, which never challenges why things should be the way they are, just tries to cope with what it encounters. Through his eyes, this hellish world is presented as unchangeable and unchanging. And his whitmanesque upbeat assumption that the lives he encounters have meaning, that the work-a-day tasks they perform are satisfying and signficant, adds to the overall unrelenting horror of it all:
"From the Wilson Avenue El Joseph rode high above the street and watched the third story windows of the brick three-flats roll past. Every window, it seemed, was darkened and every apartment was vacated for the afternoon. Joseph imagined that all of these people were out at work, or at the beach, or at the ballpark, or doing someting valuable and productive. Working in offices with magnificent and sweeping views of the entire city, driving taxis that circle the Loop, and then hustle out to the airport and back, serving coffee, dry-cleaning clothes, tending to hospital patients, sailing boats. Getting married, getting divored. Driving trucks, directing traffic, sitting in libraries, sitting in schools. Washing windows, waiting tables, waiting buses. Waiting for the day to end.
"So that at night they could all be back at their homes, with their families and neighbors, and every window would be warmly and safely lit until it was time for bed. They would sleep until the next day when it would all start again. And would start again the next day and go on just like that until years passed and the people died and new ones replaced the ones before them and nothing really would change." (p. 280)
Here we encounter a powerful, unique, new voice. Let's hope we hear far more from Zak Mucha.
In The Beggar's Shore by Zak Mucha, Joseph, the main character, also has lived a very sheltered life, rarely allowed out of the confines of a church/cult in the slums of Chicago, until he is 18. When he does break free, the world he sees, takes for granted, and learns to deal with is the world of the homeless and poverty-stricken. Naively and Candide-like, he encounters sexual deviance, drugs, violence, and theft. While he himself steals, sniffs toluene, and sometimes attacks others, he remains largely a simple, good-hearted victim. His main weakness is the gullibility that comes from his unfailing faith in other people, who repeatedly take advantage of him. Even though he grew up in this part of the city, he never before experienced it first hand -- he is very much a stranger in a strange land, a Gulliver who finds himself in one extraordinary unexpected circumstance after another.
On the one hand, the reader gets what appears to be a very realistic view of life on the streets, and what it takes to survive. On the other hand, this tale has strong religious overtones, with its origins in the church where Joseph's life begins. In this sense, Joseph is a "holy fool" in the medieval tradition -- someone whose simple-minded. largely unselfish naivete seems to put him close to God (as in Erasmus' Ship of Fools, Rabelais' Tier Livre, Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris [Hunchback of Notre Dame], Dostoeyvsky's Idiot, and late stories by Leo Tolstoy). In that tradition, reason is the basis of self-interested calculation and premeditation, and an individual who is a bit mentally deficient and thereby incapable of selfishness might in some sense be incorruptible and inherently holy.
As he moves through this hellish slum world, with allegorical dimensions, Joseph understands that he has done wrong, despite good intentions, and keeps expecting and even hoping for the divine retribution he believes he deserves. Sometimes this book reads like a modern Prilgrim's Progress without the hope of salvation.
The use of names adds to the allegorical, medieval feel, "Joseph didn't know any full proper names, just nicknames and titles left over from lives concluded long ago. As if their names didn't matter at all anymore." (p. 211). He deals with the Printer, the Mayor, the Preacher, and with characters only known by their first names. Hence, despite their bizarre behavior, characters are presented as examples or types rather than as unique individuals, with the implication that there are many more like them out there on the streets, not just of Chicago, but of cities around the world.
The matter-of-fact unadorned Hemingway-like style adds to this effect. Most sentences are simple, direct, declarative, short, and to the point. There is very little description. Everything is seen/filtered through Joseph's matter-of-fact mind, which never challenges why things should be the way they are, just tries to cope with what it encounters. Through his eyes, this hellish world is presented as unchangeable and unchanging. And his whitmanesque upbeat assumption that the lives he encounters have meaning, that the work-a-day tasks they perform are satisfying and signficant, adds to the overall unrelenting horror of it all:
"From the Wilson Avenue El Joseph rode high above the street and watched the third story windows of the brick three-flats roll past. Every window, it seemed, was darkened and every apartment was vacated for the afternoon. Joseph imagined that all of these people were out at work, or at the beach, or at the ballpark, or doing someting valuable and productive. Working in offices with magnificent and sweeping views of the entire city, driving taxis that circle the Loop, and then hustle out to the airport and back, serving coffee, dry-cleaning clothes, tending to hospital patients, sailing boats. Getting married, getting divored. Driving trucks, directing traffic, sitting in libraries, sitting in schools. Washing windows, waiting tables, waiting buses. Waiting for the day to end.
"So that at night they could all be back at their homes, with their families and neighbors, and every window would be warmly and safely lit until it was time for bed. They would sleep until the next day when it would all start again. And would start again the next day and go on just like that until years passed and the people died and new ones replaced the ones before them and nothing really would change." (p. 280)
Here we encounter a powerful, unique, new voice. Let's hope we hear far more from Zak Mucha.
November 29, 2020
Zak Mucha's first novel shows incredible talent for such a young author. He writes with brutal realism about both the inner and outer worlds of his protagonist and pulls no punches. Although I found difficult to connect to Joseph, the main character, at first, Mucha carefully builds the reader's understanding of why this young man is so alienated from the world and people around him. At times, Joseph's suffering is nearly unbearable, yet there is enough narrative force to draw the reader along through some unseemly and cruel places and events. This in itself is quite a feat since Joseph and those around him are going nowhere. The result is a shockingly clear portrait of a young mind damaged by his environment and desperately seeking a better life even though he has no context in which to define it. I look forward to reading Mr. Mucha's other novel and hope to see more from him soon.
January 10, 2025
I wanted to like it because it is a true story about a 17-18 year old boy and the hardships he goes through when he leaves the religious compound he was raised in. Just a slow story.
March 28, 2009
I have decided I'm not going to finish this book. I hate not finishing books, but it's pretty clear I'm never going to read this. I had a lot of trouble getting into the story and caring about any of the characters enough to keep going--even the main character who is more sympathetic. I don't fully know how to explain my reaction to this book, except to say I don't think the writing is bad by any means but it's just not good enough to engage me and provide any connection to any of the characters.
November 16, 2009
I'm so confident that this kid's the next major player, I'm backing him with my own cash.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews