The Groskis emigrated from Poland to Chicago to live on Maxwell Street, known as Jewtown. Black families had started moving in, and Mrs. Groski strongly disapproved; she had never quite accepted that her daughter Leeba had befriended Aileen Booker, one of the interlopers. Aileen and Leeba bonded quickly because of their fondness for gospel music and the blues. Leeba had studied the piano since she was a child, and when she later worked at a music store, she fell under the spell of a Black musician: it was how he looked, how he sang, but mostly how she connected deeply with his soulful guitar playing. She couldn't get Red Dupree out of her mind. Red had come up north from Louisiana to make it in the music business, in Chicago where it was happening in 1947. He knew he had what it took to make it, and that he would have to work hard, but what could he do about Leeba, the Jewish woman who had caught his eye. Where he came from, merely looking at the White woman could get him lynched. But his Leeba loved the blues as much as Red did, and they loved each other as much as they loved their music. Those were very dangerous times to give in to their passion...

Renée Rosen creates such an exceptionally vivid picture of Chicago that I was immersed in the sights, the smells and the sounds as if I were living the story. The author's thorough research makes WINDY CITY BLUES a most compelling read, as she seamlessly weaves fictional characters and real people with remarkable ease. I did not know about the Chess brothers, record executives, and I was rather astonished to learn that they existed, and to a point, WINDY CITY BLUES is partly their story, which is also quite a bit of the story of the Chicago blues, which is intimately intertwined with the Civil Rights Movement. WINDY CITY BLUES is a rather lengthy book, at over 400 pages, and I must say I would not have complained if there had been a hundred pages more on the Civil Rights; it was utterly riveting, terrifying, and inspiring, and a sad reminder that it happened only a short while ago. Watching how much the music-making and promoting process has evolved was also quite an education.

WINDY CITY BLUES is a luxurious tapestry, where passionate people come together through their love of music, face insurmountable odds to make their dreams come true, and where some win and some lose. Ms. Rosen's exceptional attention to historical detail makes WINDY CITY BLUES a must-read on several levels: the music, of course, where famous bluesmen are depicted so accurately, I felt transported to another time and place; the arrival of television in the Gorski home is a short but extremely memorable passage, and I have never felt the horror of racism as acutely as when reading WINDY CITY BLUES. The author doesn't aim to shock, and it's because of her subtlety that discrimination and bigotry are so appalling; it's in the seemingly little things that sometimes cruelty hit our sensibilities the hardest, and this is why the love story between Red and Leeba is so powerful. They know how difficult it is going to be for them to become a couple, and heir love is so deep, that they accept what awaits them. The amount of courage it took for couples such as Red and Leeba in those times is hard to fathom, and the author does it all without heavy-handed melodrama, which accentuates the connection the reader feels with Red, Leeba, and the characters as a whole. I will be looking forward to reading more of Renée Rosen's books, because I feel that WINDY CITY BLUES is how historical fiction should be written.

Book Summary

The bestselling author of White Collar Girl and What the Lady Wants explores one woman’s journey of self-discovery set against the backdrop of a musical and social revolution.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the music of the Mississippi Delta arrived in Chicago, drawing the attention of entrepreneurs like the Chess brothers. Their label, Chess Records, helped shape that music into the Chicago Blues, the soundtrack for a transformative era in American History.

But, for Leeba Groski, Chess Records was just where she worked...

Leeba doesn’t exactly fit in, but her passion for music is not lost on her neighbor, Leonard Chess, who offers her a job at his new record company. What begins as answering phones and filing becomes much more as Leeba comes into her own as a songwriter and befriends performers like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry and Etta James. But she also finds love with a black blues guitarist named Red Dupree.

With their relationship unwelcome in segregated Chicago and the two of them shunned by Leeba’s Orthodox Jewish family, Leeba and Red soon find themselves in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement and they discover that, in times of struggle, music can bring people together.

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