A Long Way from Chicago

Most of the events in A Long Way From Chicago take place over a span of six summers from 1929 to 1335 and details Joey and Mary Alice’s Coming of Age in a series of capers that also demonstrate The Supportive Power of Family and details the nuances of Urban Versus Rural Lifestyles. In a striking example of the last of these three themes, Richard Peck grounds the story in the time period by inserting contemporary details, as well as names and events that would have been important to the characters in Grandma’s rural town at the time. In Chapter 1, for example, Peck uses rumors that Shotgun ran with the James brothers to give readers an instant idea of tall tales that are frequently told in Grandma’s small town. Jesse and Frank James were Civil War veterans and American outlaws whose daring exploits helped to inspire the genre of Western film and literature. Along with several other accomplices, the brothers robbed banks, held up trains, and committed other crimes from 1866-1882. Jesse was finally shot and killed in 1982, and shortly after, Frank gave himself up. Put in the proper historical context, it is important to note that the James brothers stopped committing crimes almost 50 years before Chapter 2 of A Long Way from Chicago. While no age is given for Shotgun Cheathham at his time of death, the significant time gap suggests that the rumors of Shotgun running with the James brothers could very well be a fabrication. If so, it is only the first in a long line of rumors and made-up tales that will circulate through Grandma’s town and stir up trouble as the novel progresses.

Peck’s strategic use of historical references continues when Grandma refutes the stories that Joey and Mary Alice heard about Shotgun and explains that she could have outshot him, despite not being an “Annie Oakley.” Originally born Phoebe Ann Moses, Annie Oakley escaped a life of poverty by demonstrating outstanding skill with a shotgun, which led to her successful career as a performer with her husband, Frank Butler. Dubbed a “Champion Markswoman” by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West traveling show, Oakley’s name has come to be synonymous with an excellent marksman, and Grandma makes the comparison to show that she is not much good with a gun, and therefore, “Shotgun” Cheatham is even worse. However, from her dramatic actions during her overnight vigil next to Cheatham’s coffin, Grandma still clearly has a bit of a reputation with her shotgun, a fact that suggests she is downplaying her skills here. Combined with her playful fib that Cheatham earned his nickname and supposed war-hero status from President Ulysses S. Grant himself, the telling of tall tales is firmly established as a recurring theme throughout the novel. Thus, readers must always be vigilant to discern where the blurry boundary lies between fact and fiction, and all such assertions must be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism. Even Joey’s comments in the prologue indicate the inherent unreliability of storytelling, for Joey paradoxically states that his memories of these iconic times become “truer with the years” (1).

Peck also introduces a variety of social and cultural practices that have long since become obsolete but were still quite common during Great Depression. For example, at the end of Chapter 1, Grandma holds a vigil over Shotgun’s body. This practice may be likened to a modern-day wake at a funeral home, and it has roots in Appalachia (an area of the United States encompassing the states from Ohio to Alabama). While there are conflicting accounts of how this practice began, it is often seen as a ritual to respect the dead and bring loved ones together. Before embalming became a common practice, bodies were simply cleaned and dressed to be buried, leaving them vulnerable to decay and to pests such as insects and rodents. Those watching over the body would keep pests away until the morning when it was time for the burial. Other accounts claim that keeping a vigil with the dead was also intended as a way to make certain that the person was truly dead, for bodies would tend to move due to the onset of rigor mortis (the stiffening of the joints after death). Other rumors state that in extreme cases, rigor mortis would cause the body to sit up, but this has been contested. In the novel, Grandma’s sitting-up party is one of the many off-putting events she uses to keep people from bothering her in the future. The incident with the tomcat is just a bit too convenient to be unplanned, and the narrative implies that Grandma somehow guided the cat into the coffin so she could shoot at it and convince her company to leave.

In an extension of the tall-tale theme, Chapter 2 revolves around Grandma’s elaborate plan to get the better of the tricksters belonging to the Cowgill family. In a prime example of entitled behavior, the Cowgill boys are troublemakers who get away with vandalizing property because their father chooses to look the other way as long as their behavior never interferes with his business. To stop the boys, Grandma plants a mouse in a milk bottle in order to make the incident about the Cowgill’s milk farm business. Her ruse shows that finding a person’s vulnerabilities will make them take an action they wouldn’t normally take. Rather than allow his company to be tarnished by rumors of a mouse in a milk bottle, Mr. Cowgill accedes to Grandma’s demands and finally punishes his sons for their actions. (It is important to note that at the time, whipping was considered to be an acceptable punishment for youthful wrongdoing: an outdated idea that has since been made illegal by child protection laws.)

Chapter 2 also shows Grandma’s innovative—if morally questionable—ability to create elaborate tales and strategically twist events in her favor. By telling the Cowgill milkman that she and her grandchildren will be away from the house, she makes them think that her house will be easy to burglarize. Declaring Joey to be a Chicago gangster also makes him a threat to the Cowgill boys’ reputation, for they want to prove that they are the toughest gang in town. Combined with the lure of an ostensibly empty house, this taunt makes the perfect bait. Once the Cowgill boys are caught red-handed breaking into the house, Grandma then uses the mouse in the milk bottle to get the desired outcome—the end of the Cowgill boys tormenting the town. Throughout the story, the narrative remains focused on the details of Grandma’s crafty machinations, and it is not until the final line of the chapter that Joey realizes how much his grandmother truly cares about the town, for all of her actions are designed to restore a sense of order and justice and prevent such wrongdoings from occurring in the future. As the book progresses, he realizes that this is an ongoing trend, and that his grandmother often pretends not to care about things she holds dear, though he never comprehends the reason why.