Looped

Presents the world in one neighbourhood: a stunning debut from a powerful new voice. Andrew Winston's debut novel links the lives of a horde of disparate characters living in Chicago's Rogers Park at the dawn of the new millennium.

It is the year 2000, false dawn of the new millennium.

College dropout Ellen Kovacs wanders through Chicago's Rogers Park neighbourhood, following a single face with her 8mm camera.

The face belongs to Alice O'Leary, a struggling musician with a job in a flower shop.

At the shop, Alice meets Nathan and his lover, Robin, who are trying to keep up a relationship despite heavy baggage on both sides.

Across the street from the flower shop is a diner frequented by Ng Pran-Markowitz, a teenage artist and loner.

The diner, in turn, is owned by Elias Kanakes, who is losing his connection to his family and worries that his restaurant's day has passed.

His mail is delivered by Alphonse Duchossois, an African-American who befriends Florence Finkel, an elderly Jewish widow who sees visions of her late husband. Winston spins his wheel of characters round and round over the course of a single year, capturing the way relationships bloom and break apart and raising unspoken questions: what constitutes community?

What do people really have in common? The place, in Winston's world, is as important as the people and through the intermingled lives of his cast Chicago itself flowers in all its multifaceted glory.