First published 2010
Jerald Walker grows up in a Chicago housing project with six siblings and blind parents who dream of middle-class success for their children. Teachers see promise in the bright young boy. But at fourteen, Walker turns to the streets. By seventeen, he has dropped out of school, uses drugs, and runs with gangs. His life speeds toward the violent end that claims so many young Black men. Then gunfire shatters everything. Walker's friend Greg, a drug dealer, dies from gunshot wounds less than an hour after Walker buys cocaine from him. Walker throws his drugs out a window, though he admits this was only the second hardest thing he ever did. The hardest was not following the drugs. The story moves between past and present as Walker rebuilds his life. He becomes a husband, father, teacher, and writer. But escaping the streets proves difficult. He must confront racial stereotypes, both his own and those he encounters in white spaces. A trip to Africa forces him to wrestle with questions of race and identity. Walker refuses to blame others or seek pity.
Genres: american-fiction, african-american, coming-of-age, biography-memoir
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: overcoming-adversity, redemption
Setting: Chicago
Period: 20th-century
256 pages · Hardcover · Bantam Books
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, violence