“Lost in East Chicago,” Excerpted from “Walking Chicago’s Coast” by Michael McColly

The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new and recent books:

I walk across the highway to the other side, lean over the same crumbling concrete guardrail and look down into the stagnant cesspool. As I slowly raise my head, I follow the canal as it extends in a straight line out to Lake Michigan. The huge, shadowy metal structures of the steel makers stand along the shore, and next to them, barely visible, a towering crane.