THINK: Basketball Diaries MEETS Raging Bull MEETS Strawberry Fields
This is a novel revealing the emotional, physical pains and pleasures a young man endures while growing up in New York City during the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is a first-person non-fictional account replete with emotion and stingingly blunt and humorous dialogue. The story is a timely expose of a young male who is constantly struggling internally while he literally must fight to survive life on the streets. He is unknowingly addicted to the drugs and the violence that accompanies him on his journey into adolescence.
The story is divided into three stages of the young man’s life:
First, his early life is detailed as he is exposed to several tragic events that constantly unfold around him. While growing up in an Irish-American neighborhood and attending catholic schools, his street life becomes a testament of his non-acceptance of authority. It soon becomes clear to him and others around him that his life is his own.
Secondly, his teen years where his daily struggle with drinking, drug use and street fighting leads him to a near death by suicide. Now, homeless and recluse to his peers his adventurous spirit takes him on a two-year hitchhiking journey across America. When he tries to escape the mean streets of New York City he discovers that his troubles are self inflicted. Hitchhiking affords him the opportunity to new experiences. The road becomes a means for him to be himself without having any long term repercussions from the locals he briefly interacts with. His early “street education” comes in handy during the many dangerous and erotic experiences of the road.
Finally, his years as a young adult. The life style and habits have not changed, yet he gallantly tries to grow up and escape the life he created for himself. The tales continue as he flows from one drunken, violence fueled event to the next. These “tales” are actual moments in time, flashes of events that take place throughout his life. This novel is a photo album with words telling of a life that is anything but normal.
These are my stories, these are my tales.
-Peace
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