Vincent Francone’s “Like a Dog,” as in “Work like a dog,” is a great read. A working class guy who comes up on the South Side of Chicago and moves north in a quest a better life, Francone takes us on a dazzling tour of minimum wage America over the last couple of decades. He’s has done it all; “I’ve tried telemarketing, copy writing, editing; I managed a courier center, I conducted background checks on potential healthcare employees, and worked in a stock room. . . .” And that’s before he goes to university and winds up, like so many other academics today, as a part-time instructor in a string of economically stressed public colleges. Francone’s descriptions of boring and soul-destroying work, the places where it’s done, and the people who do it are beautifully written, wildl entertaining, deeply poignant, and mysteriously inspiring. This is what it’s like to be alive in these times, “Like a Dog” insists, this is the battlefield of everyday life. These are your adversaries: mindless repetitive work, bored and boring co-workers, feckless bosses, plus your own inclination to work as little as possible, spend every penny you earn right away, and escape from bad job to bad job, without ever climbing any ladder that might lead to better paid if equally meaningless work. Best of all, this post-industrial odyssey down mean streets and corridors to mean offices and classrooms, dingy apartments, and dead end bars is full of gritty life. Francone is a gifted story- teller with a great, street smart voice. His protagonists and characters are brilliantly drawn.. And in their bafflement and self-destructive resistance to the work regieme that claims them they press back in an utterly realistic way against our recession-bred equation of employment, almost any employment, with salvation. Studs Terkel would have loved this book--John McClure, Phd

Like a Dog: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Francone, Vincent

Memoirs

Blue Heron Book Works

Vincent Francone loves books: he loves to read them, loves to write them, loves to collect them. The last one--collecting--though adds literal baggage to his life through moves, broken love affairs, deaths of beloved pets and beloved friends, In 2016 when life converged in a nadir of disappointments, he looked through his library and found what made his life worth living.

The Soft Lunacy: Episodes of Literary Obsession

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Certain cities are icons in literature and in our popular imagination. But cities grow. Demographics change. And the stories that used to define a place somehow no longer fit. Chicago is one of those places. While it may no longer be the city of broad shoulders, it's a big tent and contains as many interpretations as people who live there. Author and editor Vincent Francone does a fabulous job of finding the stories and the people who define Chicago now. And guess what? No two takes are the same. And some may surprise you.

Open Heart Chicago: An Anthology of Chicago Writing

United States

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Francone, Vincent. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Francone, Vincent