D'Ambrosio Brick

The brick serves to underscore D’Ambrosio’s fascination with the infinite, time and history. “Brick Wall” is the story of clay, unimaginably old, fired and refined into brick. This brick gains a new identity as it is paved into a building and as the building changes and erodes. In the text, D’Ambrosio talks about the bricks in the buildings of Chicago, especially his uncle’s bar. For a time, it seems the brick has significance; that is until the bar closes and the brick becomes nothing but brick again, with no other purpose. The wall decays but the material remains, perhaps to be built anew someday.

 Although this brick is practically immortal, D’Ambrosio only gets to witness a fraction of this brick’s lifetime. He gives it a history and assumes its age. He applies the same thought process to the characters who frequent his uncle’s bar. He assumes things about their pasts, just as he does the brick. Perhaps their personalities have crumbled and taken on new shapes like the bricks in the city of Chicago. This fascination with brick alludes to the author’s desire for backstory. Overall, the creation and destruction of the infinite and the desire to understand this journey is captured in D’Ambrosio’s brick.