Review: Loved ‘The Warriors’? You might be into ‘The El’

Cory Oldweiler, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s “The El” follows several members of a Chicago street gang as they traverse the city via the elevated train system that gives the novel its name. But while the story is loosely inspired by 1979’s “The Warriors,” a cult classic film set in New York City, this novel and the man who wrote it are distinctively — and proudly — Chicagoan.

More than a dozen members of the Simon City Royals narrate the novel, but the predominant voice belongs to Teddy, who, like Van Alst himself, is part of the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians.

Teddy only recently completed his freshman year in high school (on the second try), but must guide his “set” of fellow Royals from their home turf in Rogers Park, on the city’s northern edg