Nothin' but Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland - Tapa dura

Edward McClelland's Young Mr. Obama argues convincingly that our first black president couldn't have come from any place other than Chicago. If you want to understand the 'Chicago-style' politics that shaped our president--the real thing, not the right-wing cartoon--you have to read Young Mr. Obama. (Joan Walsh, editor in chief of Salon.com)

With Young Mr. Obama, Edward McClelland finishes what The Bridge started, showing how Obama navigated Chicago political life, which can be as rough as a Blackhawks game ... McClelland's book is long on reporting and narrative, and short on meditation and analysis - for which readers can be thankful.... For the many Americans who remain fascinated with the American president, Young Mr. Obama makes for insightful, enlightening reading, a worthy supplement to Remnick's book and a valuable contribution to the record on the 44th president. (Christian Science Monitor)

Captures a slice of North Americana with the precision of a Walker Evans photograph, and sentences worthy of John McPhee. (Neal Pollack)

Brilliantly captures the pace of track life. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Engagingly written..McClelland's book reminds us of what has transpired in the heart of the country over the past 30 years and of the battering endured by hundreds of thousands of working-class families as global corporatism and federal trade policies gutted the American middle class. (Los Angeles Times)

McClelland is a terrific reporter, smoothly blending facts from the historical record with the bitter, often profane, conversation of the displaced and desperate men and women he meets and his own reflections. These last are often as witty as they are shrewd. (The Washington Post)

McClelland, a former newspaper reporter, is an engaging writer with an ear for local voices. He has a knack for the memorable phrase and often lends a poetic touch to urban affairs...by memorializing the best days of American labor, he reminds us of just how much we had. And, of course, how much we lost. (Robert Smith, Cleveland Plain Dealer)