"A writer of exceptional gifts and grace." --Joyce Carol Oates A young fireman battles to provide for his family--and struggles to avoid the traps of crime and poverty that surround him. A resident of impoverished Rio Seco, California, Darnell Tucker...
I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots established Straight as one of America's foremost chroniclers of African American life. Now, with this novel, she becomes one of the first novelists to write about the dangers and complexities facing young African American...
The acclaimed author returns to her fictional East L.A. community with a "nuanced, unsentimental portrait" of a young black man's coming of age (Los Angeles Times).
Unlike most of Darnell Tucker's friends, he grew up with a father. But at twenty, he finds...