Book Review: Straight Outta Skokie
Straight Outta Skokie: The Krockey Chronicles 1968. Al Krockey, Magical Journey Media LLC, October 2025, paperback and e-book, 282 pages.
Reviewed by Brian Foster.
Straight Outta Skokie, by Al Krockey, is a memoir chronicling the author’s life in the city of Chicago in the year 1968, as he spends his eighteenth-year hustling for cash, discovering new passions, especially for music, and growing as a person. Despite the first-person point of view, and the nature of the memoir both directing the audience’s attention towards Krockey, the time and place in which the novel is set consistently steals the show. The Chicago Krockey describes is so full of life, joy, and opportunity, that it will make you want to live there.
Even as he describes the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (which he did not personally experience) the city itself remains vibrant, and more than deserving of both love and respect.
The pacing in Straight Outta Skokie is fast without being rushed, and it never feels like the reader is having to wait for something to happen to the protagonist. Al Krockey is an active young man, hungry for life, for money, for culture and for experience. The author casts himself as a person with a powerful sense of self, and a distinct identity shaped by his surroundings, his heritage, and the people around him. These factors make the book a quick read that doesn’t sacrifice depth, and while not an edge of your seat thrill ride, the novel never fails to keep the reader engaged with Krockey’s story.
Though not a true hippie by most reasonable standards, Krockey is a true child of the sixties, recounting in a very matter of fact way how he both sold and took drugs regularly, with the darker realities of the drug trade being, at best, a vague and indistinct outline on the horizon. Something that happens to other people and isn’t worth worrying about, which does a great deal to ground the reader in the mind of the protagonist. Krockey is both his own best friend and his own worst enemy, as his genuine decency and admirable work ethic do little to protect him from his impulsive judgments and tendency towards needlessly risky behavior. Even so, Krockey’s good heart, and exceptional luck, tend to shield him from the worst of the consequences.
Straight Outta Skokie is an enjoyable romp through a very specific time in American history, and can be easily recommended to anyone looking to learn about what day-to-day life in the sixties was like, outside of the world changing scandals and social movements. It is also an unflinching reflection on a time in a young man’s life when he was, in many ways, wiser than he was smart. The author has made it clear that there are further volumes on the way, which helps explain why the ending feels like it just happens, without any major resolutions, revelations, or lessons learned. This is not to say that the ending is bad, simply that it is sudden and feels more like the ending to an episode of television, rather than the definitive conclusion to a novel.
If you’re looking for an enjoyable memoir that will put you in the mindset of an interesting young man coming into his adulthood, or you want to know what it was like on the streets of Skokie in 1968, then this is without a doubt the book for you.
