The Wagon and Other Stories from the City

by Martin Preib

Martin Preib is an officer in the Chicago Police Department—a beat cop whose first assignment as a rookie policeman was working on the wagon that picks up the dead. Inspired by Preib’s daily life on the job, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City chronicles the outer and inner lives of both a Chicago cop and the city itself.

The book follows Preib as he transports body bags, forges an unlikely connection with his female partner, trains a younger officer, and finds himself among people long forgotten—or rendered invisible—by the rest of society. Preib recounts how he navigates the tenuous labyrinths of race and class in the urban metropolis, such as a domestic disturbance call involving a gang member and his abused girlfriend or a run-in with a group of drunk yuppies. As he encounters the real and imagined geographies of Chicago, the city reveals itself to be not just a backdrop, but a central force in his narrative of life and death. Preib’s accounts, all told in his breathtaking prose, come alive in ways that readers will long remember.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Short Stories, Memoir

165 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a brutal authenticity to Preib's nonfiction stories, in which both he and the city of Chicago are protagonists. Preib is a police officer who came to it after a long series of service jobs, and stints in higher education where he attempted to study literature and Greek. He provides various vantage points: the inside of a squad car, a hotel doorman's post, the small studio apartments where he's lived. He took the police job in order to write, both to subsidize his writing, and to provide material for it. As he makes his rounds he constantly writes notes on scraps of paper which will turn into some more polished narrative. It's not only his descriptions of the city, its criminals, its gritty underclass, and its dead that are brutal, but also his self-assessments and introspections; rarely do writers write so piquantly and honestly of failure and loss.

The first two essays, "Body Bags" and "The Wagon", are about Chicago's corpses, and they were hard to read. It was a relief when he made a joke.

"What is his name?" the hostile morgue attendant asks, referring to the corpse in the wagon.

"Hold on," I say. I return a few moments later and shrug my shoulders. "He won't say." She then smacks the paperwork down on the counter and walks away.

I must also commend the excellent cover photograph, which captures so much about the city and the flavor of the book.

[Peter Landau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think it’s tough being a cop? Try being one with literary pretensions. Martin Prerib is a police officer in Chicago and in THE WAGON AND OTHER STORIES FROM THE CITY he collects personal essays about his journey from overeducated service worker and hotel doorman to low-rung peace officer who rides the wagon of the title. It picks up the dead. He’s got some nice details about the work, though it made me want to go back and reread Gil Reavill’s AFTERMATH: CLEANING UP AFTER THE CSI GOES HOME. But Prerib isn’t writing to show what’s behind the blue line as much as anguishing over his slacker past. There’s a lot of why this and why that? Big questions and bigger answers that bog down some nice sketches about Chicago. Prerib isn’t a bad writer, he’s just hooked by the myth of the noble worker and the ignoble moneyed class. He’s right, of course, except when he’s wrong. Because class sucks almost as much as people do, and to paint the lumpenproletariat with the same cliched brushstrokes as the exploitative capitalists might feel right, but it’s just so much propaganda. Not that Prerib is some pinko with an agenda. Far from it. He’s a toilet-humored beat cop with a fart machine to torture his partner (and the reader). He’s an blue-collar intellectual and like all people who love to think too much he gets tangled in a philosophic knot. Everyone has an opinion. I just wish they’d keep it to themselves. Let the work speak for itself. When it does, this book is really good. When it doesn’t, well, I was just happy the book is really short.

[Jason Jb · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book caught my attention because it sounded like it would be interesting to learn of the insights of a Chicago cop going about his day, doing his job, and finding meaning in those experiences. I expected a collection of stories, some humorous, others tragic, and an honest critique on society at its best and worst, told through the lenses of an experienced cop.

Instead, I got useless ramblings from a guy who appears to have spent the majority of his adulthood half-assing his way through life before stumbling into a job he seems to detest just to pay bills. Preib fashions himself a great philosopher, when a cursory glance through his "essays" shows a guy who, for all intents and purposes is a loser coasting through life. Having worked dead-end/no-where jobs in an effort to support his addiction (which is basically reading great literature and philosophers)Preib attempts to cast himself as the next Thoreau. But all he succeeds in doing is showing the reader what a person with loads of potential but very little motivation can achieve in life. And it isn't a whole lot.

While Preib is certainly intelligent, well-read, and has a vast vocabulary, he lacks any clear, structured writing style and doesn't really know how to string coherent thoughts together. Like I said earlier; useless ramblings.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry. Dry. Dry. I really wanted to love this book, but it was dry. Over and over all through the book, he writes about his early jobs-he gets a job, gets distracted and then quits and moves on. He can’t do two things at once, like go to college and work a job. Or work a job and read a book. No kidding. Hard to believe, right? He quits his jobs if he wants to read a book. Can you just imagine? Anyway, there are some interesting points made in the book that I clearly related to. The second class citizen thing- where a police officer is guilty until you could prove yourself innocent. How any citizen for absolutely any reason can accuse you of a crime and even if exonerated (cleared) it goes on your record as charges brought against you. Big brother is watching on video and taking everything out of context. True police work is hampered because of that. Could have been a way better book with way more experiences being showcased just to show regular people just how mentally challenging being the police is. Believe me ordinary citizens want to know how you really feel and what you really do, that's why all the "cop" shows do so well. Take that from me. I have been on both sides. But give it a shot, you will learn a thing or two.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Martin Preib is a good writer, and like a lot of good writers he's a little in love with the sound of his own voice. Sadly, this almost ruins what could have been a great book about being a cop in Chicago. Mr. Preib's life story is interesting and provides valuable context for why he sees the city in the way that he does. Unfortunately, he gets carried away with his philosophizing and doesn't let his stories do the work for him. Basically, he commits a writer's greatest treason: He tells us instead of showing us.

Much of the book is composed of his musings, some of which can only be categorized as "rambling." For a book which is sold as "Stories from the City," there are precious few stories to be had.

What makes this so frustrating is that when Mr. Preib does present stories he does so in a compelling and honest fashion. This keeps you reading through the book, looking for the next one of these gems.

I think that Mr. Preib has a good -- maybe even great -- book in him. This, unfortunately, isn't it.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I chose to read it thinking I would get interesting stories about being a Chicago cop, coupled with information about a guy who worked in the service industry. What I got was a few interesting details about being a Chicago cop along with a lot of sentences Preib strung together to try to show off his vocabulary skills and show his ability to tease deep meanings out of basic activities, such as riding the el and playing basketball. If he wanted to write a book about becoming a writer, than he should have marketed this book as such. He writes way too much about finding himself as a writer, and doesn't spend nearly enough time delving into what could be quite interesting subject matter. This guy lost his mother, has spent days hitchhiking, and has worked in jobs that could produce an amazing story each day. Why do these experiences not translate themselves into a compelling set of stories in this book?

[Ken French · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was expecting gritty stories of the Chicago streets by a writer/cop who lived it. Instead, these are extremely pretentious, long-winded pieces about the "weight" of the dead or how the "chorus of life" affects us. It's also obvious that these were published individually, since practically every one repeats all the menial jobs Preib had before becoming a cop.

[Theresa Hildebrand · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having been raised by a Chicago cop, this was a must read for me. I was surprised at how eloquently Preib told his stories. The other cop story books that I read were a bit rough around the edges, but this was enjoyable enough. Nothing earth shaking ~ but a pleasant read. Meh.

[Alli P · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I was going to read insightful commentary about life/death in Chicago structured around anecdotes of encounters on the job, but instead I got 165 pages of fanciful ramblings that often made no sense and weren't interesting. Doorman turned cop who wanted to be a poet.

[Eileen Poles · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of my time. Couple of interesting stories. However for the most part just him rambling about his writing

[Brother James Reiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable read

The author's style pulls you into the life and experiences of the Officers. You feel like you're riding with the Officers.

[Juliet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A linked collection of personal essays on returning to Chicago to work as a cop -- the path that led there, the author's reaching for something greater than the days in which he finds himself, for the greatness *within* the days he finds himself. Strangely, for the subject and approach, a bit purple and self-indulgent at times -- but the sort of youthful excess that is easy to forgive in a first collection and for the occasionally crystalline moment, captured and stilled in a sort of prism of reflection.

I would have preferred to see the pieces linked a touch more firmly in an identifiable arc (perhaps the selfishness of wanting to continue to follow a thread spun out in an essay that concludes and does not return?), but the order and structure of the collection was really surprisingly solid for what are actually a series of separate essays placed together to make a whole. I'm quite curious about the order in which the essays were written, as (for the most part), the author's voice seemed to grow more assured and less fragmented as we travel further into the heart of the book. There's an interesting element here in that the author is building a narrative of American realism and national character even as, within the bounds of these recounted stories, he discusses and explores his attempts to understand that national literary inheritance.

"...these labors provided them [Whitman & Melville] with insight they could never ignore, their dark labor a means of seeing clearly. They were forced to acknowledge things as they were."

[Cynthia Raleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I probably was just feeling disappointed, but the content of the book truly is more in the category of "....and Other Stories" than it is "The Wagon." I picked up this book hoping for a gritty narrative of life as a policeman in Chicago doing one of the lesser known jobs; a great opportunity for the author to create an informative read. There is definitely a place for an author to include emotional progress and discovery concerning the meaning of life and death in a book which necessarily would contain much information about death and the seedier side of life in the big city, but that place is after the reader has been given enough material to which to relate that information and it is a decidedly smaller place than it occupies in this book. The first chapter, titled "The Wagon"originally was published in the Virginia Quarterly Review as a stand-alone essay; perhaps the books truly is more of a collection of essays.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This debut collection of essays by a Chicago beat cop is a heady blend of his gritty on-the-job street experiences with his intellectual take on things. I generally liked the former parts more than the latter, but I still rated the read as a thumbs up. Mr. Preib recounts his college days when he spent more time hitchhiking and reading at whim than he did in the classroom. Later on, he moved to Chicago where he worked such service industry jobs as hotel doorman and bartender. He writes poignantly of caring for his dying mother during her last days. The police procedural segments--like working his corpse removal details--and cop war stories are first-rate for anybody interested in crime fiction. Perhaps not everyone's cuppa, the essays should appeal to more than a niche readership.

[ten-eight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfortunately, few writers really understand cops. The only way you can truly know what makes us tick is to be one yourself. So try as many good writers might, they never quite get it right, with few exceptions.

Martin Preib is one of those refreshing exceptions, in part because he's both a great writer and also a Chicago cop. This is one of the best inside looks at policing you'll find. I hope this is the first of many books from him.

If you really want to know what it feels like to be a cop, a profession often described as "every day we live the worst ten minutes of most people's lives," read this book.

[Paul Heidebrecht · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a fondness for young struggling writers--was once myself--and Preib fits the bill. After bouncing around from job to job, he became a Chicago cop and ended up in a unit that picked up and investigated dead bodies. His essays on that experience are bracing but superbly done, quite unlike any TV shows featuring forensics units. Unfortunately, Preib is already jaded enough without the cop experience and his only refuge seems to be literature.

[Missy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked the book because I thought it would be more about the beat cops and what they experience on the job. I felt like this book was more about the authors life story and his want to find himself. I felt that his writing was scattered and that he was trying to force good literature, which at times came out more like rambling. I think it was a decent book, but I thought it was mostly dry and tough to get through.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this one. Lots of it took place not only in Chicago, but in Rogers Park, right around where I live. It took me a while to get into it and to appreciate the introspective style, but I ended up loving it. Next time I see a Chicago police officer I'll think about them a bit differently.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy, is this guy stuck in his head! He should have stuck to police anecdotes and not all the internal gobbledegook that took up most of the pages. In each chapter he would get stuck on a "theme" and would beat it to death, with interesting police stories in between. A good attempt, but I think it fell short.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

These essays by a Chicago police officer take some unexpected turns into philosophical musings. The scenes from real-life police duties ring true, with insights into the way police handle the strange situations they face on a daily basis. The philosophy is unexpected merely because it defies the stereotype of what cops are like, but who says a cop can't be a philosopher?

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

While at times bogged down by some redundancy in its reflections, I ended up loving this book. The three-page fantasy sequence in one story about locking up drunk yuppies for talking down to cops is worth the read all by itself. Cerebral and visceral, sometimes within the same page.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

When an author writes about what he wants his writing to be about, when the immediate topic at hand isn't writing (did that make any sense?), the result is usually self-indulgent and ridiculous. But here it works, perhaps because of the book's otherwise solid grounding in the everyday.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hope Martin Preib writes and publishes more. In the first couple of stories I found the narration heavy-handed. By the end I was completely enthralled. I enjoy Preib's take on the city and his attempts to find the truth of the city. Terrific!

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Actually it isn't that I didn't "like" the book, it is just that I found it too dry. Perhaps that is because I was expecting something else when I took the book off my father's shelves.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost gave up on this book. It starts slow. It's inconsistent and jumps around from his time as a cop to his time doing other things. I'm glad I persisted though because there are gems of brilliant insight.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing. great use of language and insightful. this guy thinks like i do. i hope he keeps writing.

[Bronwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given the book four stars if Preib had actually arrested those yuppies.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I totally related to this book.

[McNichol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful street level journey through the streets of Chicago told by a very talented police officer.

[Odoublegood · Rating 3 out of 5]

not sorry I read it; wonder how much is Chicago-specific