Interview: Author Frank S. Joseph

Frank S. Joseph left Chicago in 1969 and vowed never to come back. You might think that he was a Cubs fan who had finally thrown in the towel after the Cubs infamous late-season collapse that year.

But he wasn't a Cubs fan. In fact, he was just the opposite, a die-hard White Sox fan who had grown up on the South Side.

It wasn't baseball, or even football (the Bears that year posted a 1-13 record), that pushed Joseph away. Rather, it was the political turmoil in Chicago at the time. Joseph, a hardened journalist, had seen more than he could take.

Although he didn't keep his vow never to return, he never did move back. But in many ways the Chicago that he grew up with never left him. And in his debut novel, To Love Mercy, Joseph returns to the Chicago that he left behind and brings back some of its treasured memories from days gone by (places like Bronzeville, Comiskey Park, Maxwell Street and Riverview) while also exploring some of the racial and ethnic divisions that continued to haunt him long after he tried to walk away from them.

That's the intro to my interview with Joseph at chicagowrites.org.