An interesting look at big-city life, in the first decades of the 20th century, through the eyes of someone who was there and was charged with keeping a sharp eye on the goings on. That would be Ben Hecht, who was a cub reporter from Racine, Wisconsin and looking for the exciting life in Chicago. He was in over his head but adapted quickly. Often short of funds, often in the company of prostitutes ( )

A fascinating account of Hecht's years as a Chicago cub reporter, heavy on murder, prostitution, corruption and hangings, with an excursion into theater criticism.

Hecht, who went on to become a major playwright and screenwriter, was a young reporter in his 20s, in the early 1900s, a period that doesn't get a lot of attention in the history books. There was no radio or TV or Internet in his day, so newspapers with their spectacular stories about crimes were a major source of diversion.

Hecht was a journalist, but much of what he did would be foreign to any journalist today. He and his fellow reporters hung out at night in local bars with politicians and police officers and played cards with condemned prisoners in the jail before watching their 6 a.m.Friday hangings. Occasionally, they went far beyond any ethical boundary, as when Hecht and a fellow reporter learn about a new drug called adrenalin that supposedly could revive someone who was dead. They bribe the local coroner to let them grab the body of a murderer who has just been executed and plan to spirit it away to a nearby hospital for revival and even pre-sell their story to a dozen other newspaper across the country. But alas, things don't go to plan.

Then there is his assignment to learn more about this new-fangled psychological theory called psychoanalysis, proposed by some Austrian named Freud, that ends up with Hecht in bed with a prominent lawyer's wife who herself ends up as a murder victim - and Hecht is present when the cops discover her beheaded body in a basement.

Perhaps the most powerful of his stories for today's readers is of a young black nightclub singer who is engaged to a prominent black dentist who is also the organizer of a back-to-Africa campaign for African-Americans. Her explanation to Hecht of why she could never trust or love a white man ring true through the decades since. But the story has a kicker. Her lover is leading a protest march when he inexplicably charges a group of police officers, pulls a gun and kills two of them. His hanging is swift, but his lover seduces the coroner, who allows her to watch her lover's death from behind a half-open door, perhaps the saddest moment in an overall sad memoir.

Given Hecht's role as a screenwriter and his frequent reminders to readers that his memories have faded somewhat over the years, the veracity of each story will never be determined, but the overall tone is compelling. This is the underside of Chicago at a time when public morals were strict, but privately almost anything was possible if enough money or sex was on offer. ( )