From Publishers Weekly
Chicago's virulent South Side is home to a pair of troubled young black men in the '60s who quit school and join the mob in Ojikutu's gritty, robust debut. Though he is an outstanding athlete in high school, Morris "Mookie" King decides to drop out and hit the streets, along with best friend J.C. Rose. In an alley, they discover the decomposing corpse of murdered local thug "Johnny the Baptist," lift his gold jewelry and attempt to sell it in gangster Tommy Ricci's pawnshop. Seduced by Ricci's money and power, Mookie and J.C. sign up for a mob-style education, and soon they are assisting boss man Salvie in small "debt recovery" assignments. In alternating sections rife with hardcore slang, Mookie and J.C. recount their graduation to more serious tasks (including managing a refurbished nightclub cover operation). In no time, they are overseeing the entire South Side's mob activities. Money and power eventually drive the boys apart, and their differences become more evident. After they commit a sloppy murder, Mookie flees the scene and only J.C. is nabbed. Saddled with a lengthy jail sentence, J.C. has plenty of time to finish his GED and reconsider his lifelong friendship with Mookie. A tougher and wiser J.C. emerges from prison only to lock horns with Mookie, who is now primed to become a kingpin in the organization. Threats, bloodshed and murder are rife in this first novel, but Ojikutu keeps the mayhem tightly focused, offering up an accomplished and engaging story of gangster life on the South Side.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description
The prize-winning debut of an incendiary new voice in contemporary American fiction,
47th Street Black is the story of JC and Mookie, whose rise in the gangster-driven ghettos of Chicago is as swift as it is brutal.
In the early sixties, 47th street is the heart of black Chicago, where recent migrants from the South come to move up in the world. JC and Mookie are high school dropouts, playing stickball in the street when they stumble upon the dead body of the area's black liaison to the mafia. Where others would run, Mookie sees opportunity, and in no time he and JC are working for Salvie, the local boss. Within a year, they are the most infamous figures on 47th Street, best friends and partners with flashy cars, clothes, and women.
As they alternate telling their stories, the balance of power shifts: smooth, charismatic Mookie becomes the de facto leader and small, violent JC the enforcer—roles that send JC to jail for a murder they commit together. In the 15 years he's away, JC gains an education and a resentment he can't control, while Mookie gains power over the entire South Side. By the time JC is paroled, both the neighborhood and the two men's lives are on an inexorable path to an explosive confrontation with simmering injustice.
