Harcourt, 2001

-- An interview with the author.

-- Reading Group Guide for Crooked River Burning

-- Buy Crooked River Burning

-- A BookSense 76 pick (and a Top 10 pick).

-- Borders "Original Voices" choice.

A novel drenched in the history and politics of Cleveland, from the end of World War II, when it was on top of the world, to the end of the 1960s, when it was the butt of jokes. The star-crossed story of novel’s two main characters—a boy who grows up to become a city councilman and a girl who grows up to be a TV anchor—is intercut with stories of famous Clevelanders: Eliot Ness, Alan Freed, Carl Stokes and many more.

About Crooked River Burning ...

“Just about every possible Cleveland fun fact seems crammed into this meaty, engrossing novel of Cleveland in the '40s, '50s and '60s. One of the many charming aspects of this book is the narrator's energetic, ironic boosterism for Cleveland. He tells the story like a breathless kid who wants to recount the plot of the movie he has seen a dozen times but you haven't seen once. Crooked River Burning is a love letter to Cleveland, at its heart, but it succeeds through its obsession with its subject in somehow transcending the very regionalism it celebrates.” — Robin Hemley, Chicago Tribune (front page)

“A breathless, sprawling epic. The “Local Heroes” chapter on Carl Stokes, which encapsulates his entire life but concentrates on the night of his election as mayor, is a minor masterpiece.” — Arthur Salm, San Diego Union-Tribune

“Brilliant. What gives the book its edge is its setting: Cleveland. Winegardner weaves the love story through the fabric of a tumultuous era in which Cleveland, one of the birthplaces of rock'n'roll, slides substantially in population, becomes the butt of many jokes and sees the Cuyahoga River catch fire more than once. ... Winegardner's portraits of the legendary disc jockey Alan Freed and of Dorothy Fuldheim, a television commentator who worked into her 90s, are classics.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Occasionally, a novel comes along that so exemplifies its setting that it sings like an anthem for that city or region. ... This monumental tale of events great and small that together shaped the fabric of our society during the mid-20th century should not be missed.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“In this ambitious novel, Winegardner captures the interior life of Cleveland, Ohio, from the city's peak in the '40s to its lowest ebb in 1969, when the Cuyahoga River, saturated with pollutants, famously caught fire. Unfolding in high modernist mode, the novel intelligently depicts the squabbles of local celebrities and the self-consciousness of second-tier cities. Winegardner (The Veracruz Blues) infuses his tale with an exhilarating energy. Like Jonathan Franzen in The Twenty-Seventh City, or E.L. Doctorow in City of God, Winegardner takes on the American metropolis, making Cleveland his own in plain, straightforward prose. A tantalizing slice of contemporary history.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Dos Passos’s classic trilogy U.S.A. now has a rival, in this richly plotted, consistently engrossing big novel. ... A wonderful read that brings the urban tradition in American fiction vibrantly back to life.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Crooked River Burning reveals the city in a light that reflects both its blemishes and its beauty. Crafted with postmodernist touches, it is a story filled with energy, warmth, and melancholy. Winegardner's novel will help us to see this city in a whole new way.” — The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

“If Dublin can become the whole world in all its complexity, then so can Cleveland—at least in the hands of Mark Winegardner, who has created a remarkable novel that gives this profoundly human city the transcendent radiance of art. This is a major work from one of our finest writers.” — Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Wise, generous, and slyly casual . . . A masterpiece of pure storytelling.” — Jonathan Lethem, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Motherless Brooklyn

“I am filled with admiration for this moving, memorable love story, which is also a provocative meditation on the nature of history. What a way to tell time!” — Frederick Busch

“Playful and vivid, Crooked River Burning is a crafty mix of the real and imaginary. In his patient laying out of the mysteries of Cleveland, Mark Winegardner shows not just a fleeting nostalgia for his city, but true love.” — Stewart O’Nan