Chicagoan of the Year for Books: Every so often, a book comes along that changes everything. Enter Jonathan Eig and ‘King.’

The Chicago literary world, every year, without fail, is good for a great book or two.

Or three or four.

But this year was so rich in memorable works by locals, expats or just the Chicago curious, you could have spent 12 months reading only Chicago-centric books and come away satiated. Ambitious contemporary novels (Catherine Lacey’s “Book of X,” Gabriel Bump’s “The New Naturals”). Woefully underrated journalism (Ben Austen’s “Correction,” Alejandra Oliva’s “Rivermouth”). Elevated thrillers (Daniel Kraus’s “Whalefall,” Rebecca Makkai’s “I Have Some Questions for You”). Smart historical fiction (Luis Alberto Urrea’s “Goodnight, Irene,” Kathleen Rooney’s “From Dust to Stardust”). Surrealist dystopias (Daniel Clowes’ “Monica,” James Kennedy’s “Bride of the Tornado”). Folk horror (Cynthia Pelayo’s “The Shoemaker’s Magician”).

Then there was Jonathan Eig.

It’s one thing to have a universally acclaimed book that sells; it’s another when that book alters perceptions of well-worn American history, seemingly in real-time. Eig’s “King: A Life” was released in May and within weeks, columnists and reporters were name-checking the Lakeview writer’s epic biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. as transformative. It was the first major King biography in decades and, according to the New York Times, it was the “definitive” one. Here was a King who admired Malcolm X (contrary to textbooks) and was seriously feared by the United States government. Gone was the neutered, benevolent figure of national holidays and bipartisan platitudes — the historical prop, calcifying in “the gray mist of hagiography,” Eig writes — but a shrewd tactician with “demands, not wishes.” As Eig told me recently, “Even at Morehouse College (King’s alma mater), a place I assumed everyone knew a deeper story, after I spoke to 1,500 undergraduates, I would get these 20- and 21-year-olds coming up to say they had no idea what King went through, or that he plagiarized in college, or how vulnerable and difficult he could be.”

In the book’s opening pages, Eig fears his portrait “may trouble some people.”

“I was legitimately worried,” he said. “And in retrospect, my fears were not justified. A lot of people I heard from were just too numbed by the Hallmark’d King and the ‘I have a dream’ King to engage him as a person — and they seemed to admire him even more.”

Seven months later, “King: A Life” is already in its ninth printing, with 60,000 copies sold, according to publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, an impressive number for a nearly 700-page history. It was also nominated for a National Book Award and seems a probable Pulitzer Prize contender in the spring. That’s not all: Universal Pictures bought the movie rights, for Steven Spielberg to produce and Chris Rock to direct.

Eig, who spent much of the year crisscrossing the country, discussing King at colleges and churches (including a Baptist church King attended in Pennsylvania), said the success of “King: A Life” has been life-changing. Though he was already a well-regarded author of biographies that found fresh things to say about long-cemented historical figures (Al Capone, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali), Eig — who is already at work on the follow-up — doubts anything he writes next will be as big.

“I don’t tend to get dramatic about this stuff, but look, last Monday, I was in New York and I had lunch with eight Episcopal priests and two bishops. And I’m Jewish. Next month, I’m booked to appear at the Apollo!”

You’re playing the Apollo Theater — in Harlem?

“Naturally! I mean, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald and now ... Jonathan Eig?”

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com