Wheaton Public Library Hosts Local Author Signing

Join longtime Wheaton author, Jack McGuire, as he discusses his self-published memoir, Grand Crossing: Coming of Age on Chicago’s South Side during the Great Depression. Copies of his book will be available for purchase and signing. No registration required. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Grand Crossing will be donated to the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation in remembrance of the author’s father, brother and two uncles who served on the force.

In a chromatic recounting of everyday life along the streets and back alleys of his childhood neighborhood, Grand Crossing recaptures the essence of inner-city Depression-era Chicago. A gentle, malleable soul – the proverbial middle child of five – Jack struggles to find his way, and his voice, in the bustling, McGuire household dominated by a hard-drinking, volatile Irish-American cop-dad, Chicago Police Detective Martin “Mugsy” McGuire.

Jack’s Roman Catholic upbringing is pitted against emerging doubts about his faith, a growing aversion to his old man’s dictum that he become a priest and his own dreams of a more glamorous future as a big band leader.

Tag along with young Jack and his cohorts through the mischievous misadventures that color their lives amid the bittersweet irony of these pivotal years. Meet the crazy quilt of characters in Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood – many first generation European immigrants – who leave an indelible imprint on 18-year-old Pvt. McGuire, as he recalls those bygone days from an Army outpost in Europe during WWII.

Jack McGuire launched his professional career as radio/TV beat reporter for the Chicago bureau of Variety, the show biz journal. As a press agent, he handled famed Rush Street nightclubs and celebrities including Elvis Presley, Jonathan Winters and Johnny Mathis, and later, his eponymous public relations firm represented blue-chip clients such as ABC Radio and 3M Company.

He became president of the Publicity Club of Chicago, and as the founder of 20 North Productions, was announcer/producer of Make Believe Bandstand, re-creating “live” remote radio broadcasts of his beloved 1940’s Big Band music. While traversing the globe as an award-winning travel writer, he was creator/host of Chicago radio’s long-running Travel Briefs and has published more than 2,000 articles. A graduate of Northwestern University, McGuire and his wife, Jill have lived in Wheaton for more than 35 years.