Mark Wukas, at long last, is a novelist.
He’s been at it for most of his 69 years. “I started writing when I was in grade school and my younger sister had a book about a witch and I thought, ‘I could do this.’ I wrote two pages and then forgot about it,” he said.
Yes he did, but he would keep returning to writing in a long and fruitful career that has included much journalism and a great deal of teaching school. Then one day earlier this month, two boxes filled with copies of a novel — his novel — arrived at his North Side apartment and he said, “Oh, man,” and let out a deep breath.
“It was an out-of-body experience,” he told me some time later. “I took a copy out of one of the boxes and thought, ‘I pulled it off. I really pulled it off.’ What an affirmation. But then I thought, ‘I wish I could rewrite this one more time.’”
That won’t be necessary.
“The Kiss of Night” is a winner, compelling on one level as the coming-of-age story of a young man who comes to Chicago and has his life upended but also enriched by getting a job with the City News Bureau. (For decades, from 1890 to 2005, this was a low-paying but effective “boot camp”-like training ground for journalists who would go on to work for daily newspapers, producing such notables as my father Herman Kogan, columnists Roger Simon and Mike Royko, novelist Kurt Vonnegut and thousands of others.)
Wukas’s Will Moore takes well to the grim chores of City News, working the often bloody 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. On another level, this is a crime mystery with gangs, murder, drugs and other nefarious elements. There is much late-night drinking with colleagues and barflies, one a sleazy drug dealer. There is a hopeless and sad affair with a free-spirited female visual artist and a tricky but honest relationship between Moore and veteran cop Frank Foley, scarred but thoughtfully introspective.
There is no denying Wukas’s affection for the city and his amazing attention to detail, aided by, Wukas tells me, the diaries he has kept since college. It is cleverly plotted and satisfying to its end.
Here is some of what Rick Kaempfer has to say: “(Mark’s) writing is crisp and expressive and he really brought that time and place (pre-gentrified 1980s Chicago) to life. It’s also a love letter to journalism at a time when the industry could use a little love. Honestly, it’s the best novel that has come across my desk in years.”
He shares a “desk,” so to speak, at Eckhartz Press with his pal David Stern. Since founding it in 2011, they have energetically and creatively pursued Chicago personalities and locally-focused topics and published dozens of books by such folks as Joel Daly, Tom Weinberg, John Landecker, a few by Kaempfer, Chet Coppock, Pat Colander, Randy Hundley (with John St. Augustine) and on and on.
“I met Mark at a book party of a mutual friend,” says Kaempfer. “He told me he was working on a novel. When he described the story, I immediately recognized it was perfect for us. Chicago book. Chicago author. Chicago media. I asked him to send it to me when he finished it. It took over a year, but it was worth the wait.”
For those of you who might be skeptical of such praise from a book’s publisher, believing the fix is in, here’s what Kirkus Review, the respected book review magazine, has to say: “Overall, Wukas succeeds in creating sympathetic characters that have exceptional depth. … Additionally, the detailed descriptions of Chicago give the work a feeling of verisimilitude and paint a vivid picture of the city.”
Wukas grew up on the South Side and thought about becoming a priest but, he says, “when I turned 13 or 14, the realities of puberty set in and I gave up that ambition.” He graduated from Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, went to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, switching majors from history to English and, more impactfully, worked as a reporter on the college newspaper, The Daily Illini.
He “fell in love with journalism,” he says and after teaching history for two years at Quigley, he dove into what was becoming the increasingly messy journalism waters. He worked at City News, wrote a few things for the Tribune and other publications, worked on a couple of books and other projects, all in his attempt to piece together a decent salary.
The freelance writing life is a tough life. In 1999, Wukas married, and with a wife and three step-children, he dipped into teaching before landing at New Trier High School. The marriage lasted 15 years, but he kept teaching, eventually retiring in 2021 after teaching English and coaching cross country/track and field.
In classrooms, he taught his students about such writers as Hemingway, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald and other masters. “Comparing my writing to these writers was not healthy,” he says. “‘The Scarlet Letter,’ ‘Gatsby’… I look at my stuff and think, ‘This isn’t any good. Why am I doing this?’ But it is done and now it is up to readers to have their say.”
The night before a planned book party for “The Kiss of Night” earlier this month, Wukas called an old pal from the City News days. “He was so worried,” she says. “He didn’t think anybody was going to come.
“Well, he was wrong. There were 100 people there. Old City News folks like me and some of his former students. He was so grateful. And he sold a ton of books.”
That’s a reason to celebrate and so is his 70th birthday, which is Sunday, all day.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com