Urban Fiction Book Club
White Lines by Tracy Brown
Monday, September 27, 2010
Brown's epic explores New York's ghettos of the 1980s and '90s, following two characters caught up in the crack epidemic. Brooklynite Jada turns to the drug to numb the pain caused by an abusive stepfather and helpless mother. Meanwhile, on Staten Island, Born is growing from the impressionable son of a legendary "Original Gangster" into a hardcore hustler in his own right, fueled in part by the hurt over his father's weakness for the rock.
PREVIOUS MONTHS SELECTIONS:
Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim
Monday, April 26, 2010
Otis Tilson's family moves from the rural South to the urban promised land of Chicago only to find more racism, abysmal slums and demeaning, low-paying jobs. Unable to provide for his family, Otis's father declines into alcoholism while the family founders, with Otis's doomed sisters and brother drifting into prostitution and petty crime.
The Cartel by Ashley & JaQuavis
Monday, March 22, 2010
When Carter Diamon, the leader of The Cartel, which controls eighty percent of the cocaine industry, dies, his illegitimate son, Carter Jones, takes his place and starts sleeping with the enemy--Miamor, the leader of The Murder Mamas, who wants to take down The Cartel.
The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
Monday, February 22, 2010
Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn't want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top.
Push by Sapphire
Monday, January 25, 2010
Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary.
