After he and his wife had separated due to his depression and hard drinking, he began a swift decline, but he always carried with him his portable typewriter.
One night he reread what he had been writing over the past months and realized his stories were all self-pitying parodies of his own recent life: a misunderstood man wrongfully rebuffed by the woman he loved.
He began writing stories about the people of steel mill neighborhoods on the Southeast side of Chicago where he grew up and toiled.
Bantam provided a substantial advance, expecting the title to rank Izzi alongside contemporaries like Elmore Leonard, Tony Hillerman, Sara Paretsky, and Ed McBain.
Bantam quickly remaindered the title, angering Izzi, who believed the publisher failed to properly market and support his work.
[3][4] Although officially ruled to be suicide[5] and his family accepted the coroner's verdict,[6] the strange manner of Izzi's death and unusual items found with his body have led to numerous conspiracy theories.
Among these were claims that Izzi had infiltrated a white supremacist group and was planning to detail their activities in a future book.