Book review: Searching for John Hughes by Jason Diamond

 

 

Continuing the theme of the suburbs in many ways the chronicler of teenage life in the Northern area of Chicago was John Hughes. Famous for The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, to name just a few. Large parts of his stories were set against the backdrop of a suburban existence. His Shermer High Schools and million pound home-lined streets in Home Alone were real places that meant audiences could easily identify with them.

Among those was Jason Diamond who grew up in Chicago and walked and drove around the streets Hughes filmed and used as backdrops.

Diamond's Search for John Hughes is a personal account of his life and his search for a purpose. Things were going well until his parents divorced and the subsequent troubles that led him to follow an ambition of becoming a writer. His experiences through high school mix the comic at the same time as the tragic and there is no doubt his life was a tough one.

Settling on the idea of writing a John Hughes biography becomes his mission and shapes direction of his life taking him back into Chicago and Hughes's world. In between stints working at coffee shops or on the front desk at a  kindergarten he managed to start telling Hughes’ story. They seem to share so much in common but as he searches the more he realises that apart from Chicago and the suburbs they don't share that much. Hughes becomes more of an enigma the closer he gets to him and there are moments that they appear to share the same air but never collide.

As the Hughes biography runs into problems what does emerge is a tale of survival. Diamond becomes a Hughes character in many ways. In the same way that Annie in Pretty in Pink is inspiring so is Diamond as he emerges through years of difficulty with the writing career he deserved and the happiness he was due.

Given my recent reading this is a welcome chance to read a voice from the suburbs and hear what life was really like behind those front doors and in those high schools across Chicago.

Hughes is a different subject and like many others I enjoy his films and seek to escape into his portrayal of spaces where the losers come through and win. I'd give anything to be able to go and spend some time in the record shop in Pretty in Pink. It would take another post to go into depth on his works. But in the context of this book Diamond is Hughesian. His life story could be a gritty Hughes script, because the loser does come through. It's touch and go most of the time but you root for him throughout. Just like John Bender punching the air to Simple Mind's Don't you Forget about me at the end of Breakfast Club the kid who has gone through hell has managed to come through as one of the victors.

Book review: The End of the Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher

 

A great companion read to Meet Me By The Fountain is the End of The Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher. It runs over a similar history talking of the rise and fall of a way of living that dominated the US post war up until relatively recently.

The suburbs have always been waiting to be born, with the grid system so beloved by early settlers just waiting to be mimicked in fields on the fringes of cities. The technology to mass produce houses, Levitt style, and the need for homes spurred growth that seemed like it would never end. The dream of owning a home burned brightly in many Americans minds and as they were prepared to drive further away from the cities to where the prices would eventually come down to a price when they could afford their own home.

Once in the suburbs the dream then changed to moving up the scaler and the McMansions that littered the landscape became the ambition for many.

Thanks to the car people could drive to and from home and work on freeways, take kids to schools and clubs and pop along to the mall to do their shopping.

But a few things changed. Firstly, commuting became a drag. Not only did it take longer because congestion increased, but traditionally low gas prices ebbed away and it became more expensive. Those homes at the edge of the suburbs, the furthest from the city now became unaffordable because there was no saleable market for them and the economics of living there no longer stacked up.

The other major trend that worked against the suburbs was the re-emergence of the cities. The rough slums in some of the areas of New York that had kept people away for so long spruced themselves up and the joys of living within 15 minutes of stories, kindergartens and transport became obvious.

A final theme tha Gallagher exposes is the split within the building community, with many turning against the suburbs to concentrate on developing walkable communities that did not rely on the car.

All of those factors were exacerbated by the 2008 housing crash. In some ways this book uses that event as a platform to discuss the end of the suburbs. That is both its strength and weakness. At the time it seemed as if the collapse in the housing market, record foreclosures and the end of the housing dream would spell the end for the suburbs.

But reading this book just a year after the pandemic, when everyone was forced to stay in their homes and work and live in those same suburbs for their own safety, you have to wonder if a revision is needed. Homes became fundamental during Covid and the isolation and criticisms made in the book of expansive suburbs proved to be a benefit. Many fled their small city apartments to stay in larger family bubbles to escape isolation and loneliness.

As a result this book captures a moment in time that has passed and leaves you with more questions than answers. There is no doubt the suburbs have suffered and there are numerous YouTube channels out there touring the US to show off collapsed and burnt-out neighbourhoods to illustrate that point. Crime rates that once kept people away from cities are now doing the same in the suburbs and there are problems with unemployment, opioid abuse and violence, But many suburbs remain and there are estate agent channels that list the top 10 suburbs for couples, families and for nature lovers etc. It doesn't feel quite as apocalyptic as it did back in the few years that followed the 2008 recession.

There is no doubt the suburbs have changed and will continue to do so and this book marks a moment in that discussion about that future. Gallagher was writing about a period of mass foreclosures sparked by the recession, the first signs that the car was no longer the answer to commuting and the rise of a city alternative.

The story that Gallagher tells is one of ebbing tides of migration, of an exodus from the urban centre to the suburbs to a move by many back in, or closer to, the same cities their parents and grandparents left. The changing role of the car is also pivotal as are the generational changes that result in many younger people rejecting the attractions of the suburbs their parents embraced.

The book ends with a sense that the suburbs will never quite be the same. Her ability to chart the arguments in the planning and building communities is one of the legacies that will live on after this period because it illustrated more than anything that the money was moving from the suburbs back to the cities. The new urbanism movement has provided alternatives, the big developers that built the suburbs have moved into the cities and the love affair with the car is coming under strain. But you also sense that the love affair with the idea of personal space is not quite over and as a result the burbs might change but to a large extent stay the same.

For the history, the sense of differing viewpoints and capturing the essence of the suburbs this book hits the mark. All it needs is a post pandemic sequel to see where things stand now and where Americans now want to live.