Spotlight: White Flight by Bill Hillmann

Chicago’s western suburbs. Young Joe Walsh, the youngest in a large, mixed-race family, is attempting to make a go of it at a new school, still haunted by his rough-and-tumble city upbringing. 

He’s got some great opportunities—a summer seminar at one of the world’s top physics laboratories, a mentorship with a hard-hitting Catholic clergyman and boxing instructor who thinks he’s got talent in the ring, and a beautiful girlfriend who’s giving him some much-needed love and support. But the challenges of Chicago have followed him to its outskirts; his sister’s struggling to recover after being shot by one of Joe's former friends, his mom’s unvarnished ways are rubbing their wealthy neighbors the wrong way, and his brother’s fresh out of prison and falling into old habits. Like many young men before him, Joe’s taking out his frustrations in the boxing ring, and dreaming of a triumphant career—but will that, too, become a prison?

This follow-up to Bill Hillmann’s The Old Neighborhood connects like  a 1-2 punch. It’s another modern classic from one of the city’s best authors, a powerful story unlike anything you’ve read before.

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About the Author

Dr. Bill Hillmann is a professor of English and Communications at East-West University in Chicago. He is the author of the autofiction novel The Old Neighborhood, and the memoirs Mozos and The Pueblos. His writing has appeared on CNN, NPR, and VICE, and in the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Mail, the Toronto Star, and more. He created the National College Story Slam competition, where students from across the country compete, telling five-minute personal stories. Hillmann is a former Chicago Golden Gloves boxing champion and union construction laborer. A Chicago native, he is married to Paula Andion Zabalza.