# Frank S. Joseph — Author

Frank S. Joseph is the author of **The Chicago Trilogy**, three novels of Blacks and Whites, Christians and Jews, and a great city at mid-century going up in flames.

## The Books
- **To Love Mercy** (Book 1, 1948 Chicago) — Steve's Book. Winner of 8 awards including the Eric Hoffer Award. Published 2006 by Mid Atlantic Highlands and available in that edition; a Key Literary re-release is planned.
- **To Walk Humbly** (Book 2, 1952-57 Chicago) — Sass's Book. Published May 2025 by Key Literary. Praised by Kirkus, IndieReader 5-Star, Readers' Favorite 5-Star.
- **To Do Justice** (Book 3, 1960s Chicago) — Pinkie's Book. Published April 2024 by Key Literary. 2025 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal Winner (Fiction in the Cultural genre). IndieReader Best Book.

## About the Author
Frank S. Joseph was an Associated Press reporter who covered Chicago's mid-1960s inner-city riots, the 1967 Detroit riot, and the 1968 Democratic National Convention disorders. He moved to The Washington Post as an editor during Watergate, then built award-winning publishing companies. Lives in Chevy Chase, MD.

## Blog — Eyewitness Chicago
First-hand accounts of Chicago between 1948 and 1968 from the Associated Press reporter who covered it, and the history underneath The Chicago Trilogy. Index: https://frankjoseph.com/blog/
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### Essays - https://frankjoseph.com/blog/#essays
First-hand accounts of Chicago between 1948 and 1968 from the Associated Press reporter who covered it, and the history underneath The Chicago Trilogy.
- **Covering Dr. King in Chicago: Inside the 1966 Fair-Housing Marches** (2026-08-11) - Frank S. Joseph covered the Chicago Freedom Movement as an AP reporter. He describes the hostility at the Marquette Park open-housing march, why Dr. King targeted Chicago, what a wire reporter's day actually looked like, and why he resigned from The AP in 1967. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/covering-dr-king-in-chicago-1966/
- **Jesse Jackson, PSP and Me** (2026-02-26) - Frank S. Joseph on the death of Rev. Jesse Jackson, the charisma he witnessed first-hand in Chicago, and their shared experience of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/jesse-jackson-psp-and-me/
- **Small but mighty** (2025-11-13) - Frank S. Joseph explains why he is moving his monthly Ukraine donations from United Help Ukraine to a smaller charity called Sunflower Seeds. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/small-but-mighty/
- **Dick Cheney and me** (2025-10-14) - Frank S. Joseph on failing cardiac clearance for knee surgery after his aorta was found to be severely calcified, and what he shares with Dick Cheney. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/dick-cheney-and-me/
- **The Best Books About Chicago** (2025-09-12) - Nineteen essential Chicago reads, from gritty realism to neighborhood sagas. I grew up inside the city they describe. https://frankjoseph.com/the-best-books-about-chicago/
- **How to spot a scam?** (2025-07-19) - Frank S. Joseph dissects the flattering fake fan emails targeting self-published authors, with the tells that give them away. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam/
- **Hats** (2025-06-25) - Frank S. Joseph on why he wears hats: sun protection against actinic keratoses, how they look, and the attention they draw. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/hats/
- **Frank sticks his neck out** (2025-06-06) - Frank S. Joseph breaks his own rule against writing politics to consider the Musk and Trump relationship, while maintaining he is only asking questions. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/frank-sticks-his-neck-out/
- **I have my head examined.** (2025-01-28) - Frank S. Joseph describes a full day of neuropsychological testing, from recalling word strings to drawing clock faces, and why he went. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/i-have-my-head-examined/
- **It won!** (2025-01-14) - Frank S. Joseph on how Pinkie, the eleven-year-old mixed-race heroine of To Do Justice, first appeared to him while he was stranded by a storm in a Chicago hotel room, and on the novel winning the Chicago Writers Association contest. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/it-won/
- **"White flight"** (2024-10-11) - Frank S. Joseph on his family's move from Chicago's Hyde Park to Park Forest at age 14, and the mechanics of white flight that emptied city neighborhoods into planned suburbs. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/white-flight/
- **Commas Save Lives** (2024-09-25) - Frank S. Joseph marks National Punctuation Day with a short history of punctuation from 900 BCE onward, and why it matters. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/commas-save-lives/
- **What it's like inside a riot** (2024-08-27) - Frank S. Joseph, who covered Chicago's 1960s inner-city riots, the 1967 Detroit riot and the 1968 Democratic convention disorders for the Associated Press, describes what being inside a riot is actually like. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/what-its-like-inside-a-riot/
- **More FREE stuff!** (2024-06-26) - Frank S. Joseph on a second round of unordered Amazon shipments arriving at his house, eleven months after the first, and Amazon's indifference to being told. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/more-free-stuff/
- **It Ain't an Apostrophe** (2024-04-15) - Frank S. Joseph on the difference between the prime mark and the apostrophe, and why 5' 4" is typographically wrong. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/it-aint-an-apostrophe/
- **No ID? No problem!** (2024-04-10) - A step-by-step account from Frank S. Joseph of boarding a Southwest flight with no ID at all, and what TSA does instead. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/no-id-no-problem/
- **Down and out in America** (2024-02-29) - Frank S. Joseph argues that the American Dream's promise of mobility through hard work does not hold, told through a story of someone who fell and found no safety net. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/down-and-out-in-america/
- **The point of shutting your mouth** (2024-01-02) - Frank S. Joseph's Uber driver describes four years guarding the Shah of Iran's palace, and the argument that everyone has a story if you keep your mouth shut long enough to hear it. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/the-point-of-shutting-your-mouth/
- **Become a social media star the easy way** (2023-12-08) - Frank S. Joseph reposts a charming map of Chicago's neighborhoods to a Facebook group and watches it take off, with observations on how the city sees itself as a collection of villages. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/become-a-social-media-star-the-easy-way/
- **Do Not Succumb** (2023-11-22) - Frank S. Joseph answers a Tablet magazine survey question about how Jews feel in one word, and argues against giving in to despair. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/do-not-succumb/
- **Getting hacked and loving it?** (2023-07-25) - Frank S. Joseph on a run of security failures in 2023: unordered Amazon shipments, two compromised credit cards, and a hospital data breach exposing his Social Security number. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/getting-hacked-and-loving-it/
- **ChatAI learns fast.** (2023-03-13) - Frank S. Joseph repeats his novel-writing test on ChatAI days after the first attempt, and finds the output improved enough to be alarming. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/chatai-learns-fast/
- **Dilbert and Me** (2023-03-07) - Frank S. Joseph on newspapers dropping Dilbert over Scott Adams' remarks about race, written by a reader who liked the strip. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/dilbert-and-me/
- **I ask a chatbot to write a novel.** (2023-03-02) - Frank S. Joseph gives a chatbot a one-paragraph synopsis and asks it to write a novel, then reports exactly what the machine produced in early 2023. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/i-ask-a-chatbot-to-write-a-novel/
- **It's beginning to look a lot like ... what?** (2022-12-22) - Frank S. Joseph on receiving Christmas cards as a Jewish reader, and the mix of warmth, confusion and guilt the season produces. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-what/
- **Plastic Explosives and Almond Croissants** (2022-09-13) - Frank S. Joseph's encounter outside a Bethesda bakery, which turns from small talk about pastry into something considerably stranger. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/plastic-explosives-and-almond-croissants/
- **Nowhere, Texas** (2022-07-29) - Frank S. Joseph on the shallow natural gas well he once owned in the Permian Basin, the land it sat on, and what happened to both. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/nowhere-texas/
- **Yo Voté (Provisionalmente)** (2022-07-20) - Frank S. Joseph on casting a provisional ballot in the 2022 Maryland primary after misplacing his mail-in ballot, and what the experience revealed about election administration. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/yo-vote-provisionalmente/
- **Conchita the Mystery Woman** (2022-07-02) - Frank S. Joseph investigates the years of marketing texts his wife receives addressed to a woman who is not her, and what it says about how phone numbers get traded. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/conchita-the-mystery-woman/
- **Thoughts on Amazon** (2022-03-04) - Frank S. Joseph on Amazon shutting all of its brick-and-mortar bookstores, written by an author who visited the Bethesda and Manhattan branches. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/thoughts-on-amazon/
- **Notes from Lockdown** (2022-01-26) - Frank S. Joseph on dressing up again after two years of pandemic sweatpants, prompted by a memorial service. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/notes-from-lockdown/
- **Elijah Muhammad, Aunt Clara ... and me** (2021-11-08) - Frank S. Joseph on discovering that his great-aunt Clara Weber Greenwald's house at 4847 S. Woodlawn Ave. in Chicago is being considered for the National Register as the home of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/elijah-muhammad-aunt-clara-and-me/
- **Are Editors Evil? Part II** (2021-09-24) - Part two of Frank S. Joseph on editors, answered from the other side of the desk: proofreader, AP Night City Editor in Chicago, and Washington Post editor. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/are-editors-evil-part-2/
- **Are Editors Evil? Part I** (2021-09-14) - Part one of Frank S. Joseph on editors: a friend's warning that every editor is ruthless and imperious, set against his own apprehension before meeting his TouchPoint Press editor. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/are-editors-evil-part-1/
- **"The Millionaire"** (2021-06-16) - Frank S. Joseph uses MacKenzie Scott's giving spree and the 1950s series The Millionaire to think about what enormous private wealth does to the people around it. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/the-millionaire/
- **The 17-Year Itch** (2021-05-20) - Frank S. Joseph's encounter with a 17-year cicada during the 2021 Brood X emergence, and the dance it produced on a public sidewalk. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/the-17-year-itch/
- **The Disappearing Dr. Seuss** (2021-03-07) - Frank S. Joseph on the 2021 withdrawal of six Dr. Seuss titles, weighing the case against the caricatures against his own discomfort with pulling books. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/the-disappearing-dr-seuss/
- **Everything I Know About Puerto Rico in 966 Words** (2020-01-26) - Frank S. Joseph on Puerto Rico after nine visits and a novel set there: the collapse of its coffee export trade, US policy toward the island, and what visitors miss. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/everything-i-know-about-puerto-rico/
- **Goodbye to Paradise** (2020-01-11) - Frank S. Joseph rides out the January 2020 Puerto Rico earthquakes from the Copamarina Beach Resort, on what it feels like when solid ground stops being solid. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/goodbye-to-paradise/
- **Son of Herbie The Love Bug** (2017-04-17) - A comic dispatch from the "Friend of Frank" newsletter archive. Frank falls for a used Kia Soul in a shade called Alien Pearl and predicts exactly how the romance ends. Closes with news that the To Do Justice manuscript was finished. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/son-of-herbie-the-love-bug/
- **My Poor Home Town, Part II: Send in the Feds?** (2017-02-09) - Reader responses to Frank S. Joseph's post on Chicago police corruption, plus his own argument about whether federal intervention could fix a city where graft was routine. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/my-poor-home-town-part-2-send-in-the-feds/
- **My Poor Home Town, Part I: The Good Old Days?** (2017-01-27) - Frank S. Joseph on the 1959 Summerdale scandal, in which Chicago police burglarized stores alongside a thief named Richard Morrison, and what routine police corruption looked like to a boy growing up in the city. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/my-poor-home-town-part-1-the-good-old-days/

### Journal - https://frankjoseph.com/blog/#journal
Frank S. Joseph's running notebook: shorter notes on the writing life, the road, and whatever turned up that week.
- **And now for something (a bit) different** (2025-08-21) - Frank S. Joseph on his son Sam directing 72 Miles To Go, a play about immigration and deportation, in northern New Mexico. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/and-now-for-something-a-bit-different/
- **The Loneliness of the Long-Suffering Author** (2025-01-23) - Frank S. Joseph on the disappearing author appearance, written ahead of a talk at the Chevy Chase library. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/the-loneliness-of-the-long-suffering-author/
- **A gift for Thanksgiving** (2024-11-29) - Frank S. Joseph reprints a Thanksgiving email from a reader in West Hollywood describing an unexpected act of kindness. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/a-gift-for-thanksgiving/
- **It isn't Amazon but ...** (2024-11-11) - Frank S. Joseph corrects his previous post: the outreach he took for Amazon came from a company using a deliberately similar logo, and what that says about assuming. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/it-isnt-amazon-but/
- **Two cheers for Amazon** (2024-11-07) - Frank S. Joseph reports that after readers posted 43 reviews of To Do Justice, an Amazon Author Liaison contacted him directly. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/two-cheers-for-amazon/
- **An informal poll: Which novel gets published next?** (2024-09-13) - Frank S. Joseph asks his readers whether to publish To Love Mercy or To Walk Humbly next, laying out the case for each. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/an-informal-poll-which-novel-next/
- **A Fairy Godmother in an Uber** (2024-05-23) - I met a stranger in a Chicago Uber who turned out to be the reason I ended up on the radio that afternoon. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/a-fairy-godmother-in-an-uber/
- **Whatcha doin tonight?** (2024-05-19) - Frank S. Joseph speaks to the Hyde Park Historical Society on 1948 Chicago, covering Hyde Park, Bronzeville, Maxwell Street and Riverview, the settings of To Love Mercy. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/whatcha-doin-tonight/
- **Lightning Strikes, at Last** (2021-05-12) - Frank S. Joseph signs with TouchPoint Press to publish the entire Chicago Trilogy, including a republication of To Love Mercy. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/lightning-strikes-at-last/
- **Bread baking: A correction and a tip** (2020-04-09) - Frank S. Joseph corrects an error in his bread recipe (one cup of oatmeal, not two) and passes along a reader tip on steaming the crust. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/bread-baking-a-correction-and-a-tip/
- **Shut in? Still gotta eat.** (2020-04-06) - An early-pandemic note from Frank S. Joseph, who abandoned the search for a suitably weighty lockdown subject and taught his readers to bake bread instead. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/shut-in-still-gotta-eat/
- **A scintillating start** (2017-01-03) - Frank S. Joseph returns to blogging after five years, prompted by To Do Justice winning the Scintillating Starts contest for best opening pages. https://frankjoseph.com/blog/a-scintillating-start/

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## Publisher
Key Literary, an imprint of Key Communications Group. 5636 Connecticut Ave. NW #42340, Washington DC 20015-9998.

## Contact
- Frank: frank@frankjoseph.com
- Publisher: keyliterary@gmail.com
- Podcast booking: PodMatch

## Key URLs
- Home: https://frankjoseph.com/
- About: https://frankjoseph.com/about-the-author/
- Books index: https://frankjoseph.com/books/
- The Chicago Trilogy (series overview): https://frankjoseph.com/the-chicago-trilogy/
- Blog index: https://frankjoseph.com/blog/
- The Best Books About Chicago (curated essay): https://frankjoseph.com/the-best-books-about-chicago/
- Contact: https://frankjoseph.com/contact/