Afternoon Shift Book Club: ‘All Our Names’

Afternoon Shift Book Club: ‘All Our Names’

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Love, war and loneliness are three of the threads that run throughout our Afternoon Shift Book Club selection for May. We always pick books that involve Chicago or are by Chicagoans. Our May selection, “All Our Names,” is really more of a story about the Midwest. The book centers around two young men in Kampala and the story of how one of them, Isaac, emigrates to the Midwest in the 1970s. Isaac’s past of violence and looming civil war in Uganda are interspersed with his present relationship with his social worker, Helen, in the small town he has been relocated to. It’s the third novel by Ethiopian born, Peoria-raised author Dinaw Mengestu who joins us from New York.