From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Lopez's first novel portrays a 14-year-old boy who gets caught up with drug dealers in the inner city of Philadelphia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Booklist
Ofelia Santoro is determined to save her runaway son, Gabriel, from the drug dealers whose turf is Philadelphia's Badlands. Every night she rides a bicycle up and down the inner-city streets searching for her son, and every night she passes the folk-art memorial created in homage to the children who die every day as a result of the drug wars--an unknown artist is spray painting the outlines of children's bodies in the middle of the street; eventually, the bodies will pile up at the doorstep of City Hall. Fourteen-year-old Gabriel would like nothing better than to go home to his mother, but he's in too deep. His promotion from lookout to crack dealer has come with a price. The ruthless gang leader is convinced that Gabriel has been skimming profits, and it's payback time. First-novelist Lopez, a columnist for the
Philadelphia Inquirer, siphons off the power of his eloquent images and his gritty sense of place with a slapstick subplot involving some bumbling thieves. This one lacks the intensity of Richard Price's
Clockers (1992) and the lyricism of Jess Mowry's books; however, Lopez's Philadelphia is a marvel, its ruined streets and decaying infrastructure drawn with a delicate precision.
Joanne Wilkinson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
