First published 2001
Steve Harmon sits in a courtroom facing felony murder charges. The sixteen year old watches his lawyer Kathy O'Brien explain the gravity of his situation. A Harlem drugstore owner died in his shop. Prosecutors claim Steve acted as lookout during the crime. Steve calls himself Monster, the same word the prosecutor used to describe him. The system treats him as a pawn. Cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates surround him, each willing to sacrifice others to reduce their own sentences. Steve confronts the possibility of spending his entire future behind bars. To cope with these events, he transforms his trial into a movie script. He records each scene as it unfolds, documenting how his life changed in a single moment. Steve works as an amateur filmmaker, so the format feels natural to him. But writing down the proceedings cannot clarify the confusion he feels. Reality becomes unclear. His perspective grows clouded. Steve struggles to understand his own identity and separate truth from fiction.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, african-american, crime, young-adult
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Harlem
Period: 20th-century
281 pages · Paperback · Amistad
Content warnings: violence